


All You Think Of is Me (Rev. 1:18)

by Auber_Gine_Dreams



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Ambiguous Relationships, Blood and Violence, Blow Jobs, Dystopia, Explicit Sexual Content, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Past Character Death, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Strangers to Lovers, The Rising (In the Flesh), discussions of polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2020-12-20 21:55:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21063791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Auber_Gine_Dreams/pseuds/Auber_Gine_Dreams
Summary: The Rising was four years ago. To Mingyu it wasn’t much time in the grand scheme of things, long enough for him to start taking online classes and find a job, but for the kids he taught it was like a dream, a ghost story to talk about at sleepovers.For the people that held the guns and bats, who had spent days and weeks defending themselves from being eaten alive, the transition from 'zombie' to 'partially deceased' had been the hardest.--Or--Mingyu navigates life, loss, and love after the end of the world.





	All You Think Of is Me (Rev. 1:18)

**Author's Note:**

> My song for HVT is Someone New! There's just something about Hozier that feels so wonderfully supernatural, and the plot for this baby came really quickly once I'd settled on a song!!
> 
> This universe is very heavily based on the TV Show In the Flesh. The only thing you need to know is that it's about zombies with their humanity restored (I've been told this is like Warm Bodies but I've never seen that). You don't have to have any knowledge of the show for this to make sense.
> 
> Please heed all the tags and don't take any of them lightly. I debated for a long time over labeling this major character death instead of just past character death, but instead I'll just say it here so if you think that's not something you can handle please feel free to skip this one.
> 
> There's also a [fic playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0nw1U1xfVDs7uvidsgaO3F?si=uVgak92uTT6s5XDAppuLZw) so get cozy! It's time for zombies!!
> 
> Thank you so much to the mods for hosting this fest! I've really had so much fun with this!!! I've been working on this for such a long time and I'm so excited to finally be able to share it with all of you <333
> 
> Title is from "To Your Health" by Keaton Henson. (The bible verse is from the show!)

_[I am he that liveth, and was dead;  
_ _and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen;  
_ _and have the keys of hell and of death.]  
_ _-Revelations 1:18_

Mingyu was in college when it happened. Freshman year. The whole world ahead of him. One night he was cramming for midterms and the next he was barricaded in his dorm room, a baseball bat his only weapon. 

He was in that room for ten days, him and Wonwoo surviving off three bottles of water and a box of granola bars until Wonwoo finally snapped and ran out of the room armed only with their shower curtain rod.

Mingyu, absolutely terrified out of his mind, had followed Wonwoo into the dark hallway if only because he couldn’t stomach being alone.

Wonwoo had run one through with his curtain rod, screaming as it snarled and snapped in his face. 

The movies never got these things right.

It grabbed Wonwoo’s throat and squeezed, so hard and so tight that Mingyu was sure Wonwoo would be dead before he made it to him. He ran anyway, low on energy and terrified but he ran all the same. 

He tripped over his own feet and hit the ground just as a blast rang through the air. The creature hit the ground in front of him, shower rod still sticking out of it and oozing black into the carpet. Wonwoo pulled him up hard enough that his shoulder zipped with pain and suddenly the two of them were face to face with a boy, eyes wild and sweat damp hair pushed away from his eyes.

The boy held out a hand to them.

“Come on. We’ve got a safe place.”

The boy, who Mingyu would later learn was named Minghao, led them to the basement. It was cool and damp, but the door was heavy and barred shut with cinder blocks and old beams. Another boy was inside, and Wonwoo took one look at him before falling to his knees like he’d been punched.

“Junhui,” Wonwoo said, voice hoarse.

Junhui ran to him and threw his arms around him, broken sobs and soft murmurs in a language Mingyu couldn’t understand. 

“Guess they knew each other before,” Minghao said, shifting the last of the cinder blocks in place in front of the door.

Mingyu shrugged. Wonwoo had never been vocal about his personal life. Mingyu barely knew what he was studying, let alone if he had anyone special in his life.

The basement was stronger, safer, but wasn’t any better stocked than their dorm had been. A small pile of sealed food, one case of water. Mingyu was beginning to think he might die from something besides being eaten alive.

He looked Minghao over up and down. He was small, wiry but strong. His hair was black and long on purpose. His face was a little grimy, sweat and dust coating his skin just enough to be noticeable. 

Mingyu sat on the cold floor heavily, glancing at Wonwoo and Junhui before moving his eyes back to the floor. Watching them felt a little too much like intruding.

“How long do you think it’ll be before they find us?” he asked softly.

Minghao sat down next to him, and when Mingyu met his eyes he sneered.

“Depends on which _ they _you mean.”

————

It was two years before things were under control and another two before any semblance of normalcy returned to Mingyu’s everyday life. 

The Rising was four years ago. To Mingyu it wasn’t much time in the grand scheme of things, long enough for him to start taking online classes and find a job, but for the kids he taught it was like a dream, a ghost story to talk about at sleepovers. 

For the people that held the guns and bats, who had spent days and weeks defending themselves from being eaten alive, the transition from _ zombie _ to _ partially deceased _had been the hardest. Imagine walking down the street, shoulder to shoulder with people who, just a few years prior, had been ravenous monsters hell bent on eating every living person they could find. Only now those monsters were medicated, brain function restored, and it was almost impossible to tell them apart from humans. It was hard for Mingyu, too. Every day was a battle with fear.

The first time he met one of them, his stomach was a sour mix of anger and fear, revulsion and curiosity. It was one of those after school counseling sessions the administration was so fond of. Mingyu had been the lucky teacher to oversee, and one of the parents brought their daughter along. The girl had put her head in her hands and sobbed, talked about the nightmares, how she could hear the screams of the people she’d eaten. Guilt was a living thing inside of her, even if her heart didn’t beat anymore.

Mingyu thought about the people he’d killed, the way he’d crushed skulls under his baseball bat so that his friends would live to see another day. It was sort of the same, he realized, as his eyes blurred with tears. They hadn’t asked to come back, hadn’t wanted to rampage and hurt and kill. It was just the way things had happened.

Mingyu started volunteering at the partially deceased shelter a week later, and when he told them over dinner Wonwoo punched a hole in their kitchen wall and stormed out. Minghao would have done the same, but the truth was they couldn’t afford to pay for more damages.

Instead Minghao looked at him with something between pity and disgust. He leaned against the kitchen doorway and sighed, deep and tired with something they weren’t supposed to be carrying anymore.

“After everything that we’ve been through, Mingyu? After _ Junhui _? How could you think this was a good idea?”

Minghao spat the words at him like they were poison, and Mingyu flinched.

“I need to do something. I can’t just — there are people that need help. I want to do what I can for them. It’s what Junhui —”

Minghao pushed off the frame fast, faster than Mingyu had seen him move in a long time. He pinned Mingyu against the wall, his head level with the hole Wonwoo had made earlier.

Minghao’s eyes were burning, anger hot as his breath on Mingyu’s face.

“Don’t you dare say it. Don’t you _ fucking _ say it. You don’t know _ anything _ about what he wanted.” 

Minghao held him there a few breaths longer before stepping back. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. It was a little shorter, dyed silver because jobs couldn’t afford to be picky about those things anymore. 

They were quiet for a long time, Mingyu’s racing heart and the ticking of the clock on the wall the only noise. There were a lot of things he could have said. ‘You_ don’t know anything about what he wanted’ _ was at the top of the list, but Mingyu didn’t want to fight.

“I know what the laws are. I know that they’ve got rights. You’re my best friend, Mingyu.” Minghao looked up at him, his eyes soft with something that almost looked like love, had been love in a different time. “I won’t stop you from doing this if it’s something you want. But you better leave it at the door. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to hear about it. I just — I’m not ready.”

Mingyu sighed.

“I guess Wonwoo isn’t ready either.”

Minghao leaned back against the kitchen counter and a quick, disbelieving laugh slipped past his lips.

“He’s a fucking _ cop_. He’s busting kids every day with those blue pills that make them go rabid and for skipping their medication appointments. He has to take them to centers when they turn. He’s the one out there cleaning up when one of them kills. God, if there’s _ anything _ Junhui didn’t want, it’s that. Wonwoo shouldn’t be on the front lines at all, but we don’t really have the power to stop him.”

Minghao took another deep breath before heading down the hall toward his bedroom.

“I’m going out tonight. Don’t wait up.”

Mingyu sat down in the kitchen chair heavily and stared at the wall long after Minghao left, mind hazy with memories from a lifetime ago.

————

It was another ten days before they ran out of supplies.

“We have to move,” Minghao said, kicking a flat piece of stone across the dusty basement floor.

Mingyu turned to him with wide eyes.

“We can’t leave. Are you crazy? If we go out there we’ll _ die _.”

Minghao put his hand on his hip, pointed down to the floor littered with empty water bottles and granola bars.

“There’s no more food. No water either. If we stay here, we’ll be dead in days.” He sighed. “Our best option is to get out of here and make our way into the city. There might be others, or at the very least more supplies.”

Junhui rolled over onto his side and yawned. He’d been asleep, but talk of action had apparently gotten his attention.

“What have we got for weapons?” he asked.

Mingyu still had his baseball bat. Minghao had a gun he’d found in some dorm room, but he was getting low on ammo. Wonwoo didn’t have anything, his shower rod long forgotten. Junhui had a nasty looking hunting knife, stained black and rusted.

He grinned, showing all his teeth in a way that made Mingyu shiver.

“We’ll die either way, right? Might as well try to stay alive a little longer.”

Mingyu wondered if Junhui was, in fact, crazy. 

“Wouldn’t it be better to just stay down here?” Mingyu asked, trying to reason with the others. “Maybe we can last a few more days.”

“We’ve already rationed down as much as we could and we’re still out,” Wonwoo said. He sat next to Mingyu and put a hand on his shoulder. “We either fight our way out of here or die of dehydration.”

“Or,” Junhui started with an almost manic grin, “we draw straws and eat someone.”

“_Jesus Christ_,” Mingyu breathed out. “I don’t want to — _ god _— I couldn’t —”

Junhui sat up and stretched. When he met Mingyu’s eyes there was something there, a firey kind of determination Mingyu hadn’t noticed before.

“That settles it then. We’re going to get out of here. We’re going to live.”

Maybe Junhui wasn’t crazy, after all. 

Mingyu lost track of how much time it took them to get from the basement to the main floor. Some moments felt like hours, like when he’d been pinned to the ground by a snarling zombie, teeth inches from his nose, saved by Junhui efficiently cutting its head off and pulling Mingyu off the floor.

Some moments went quick, like the break neck run from the main entrance into the late afternoon sun.

Mingyu hadn’t felt the sun on his face in twenty days, hadn’t felt the gentle summer breeze or smelled fresh air. It was almost too good to be true, and if he’d had the time to savor it he might have cried.

There wasn’t time for such a small luxury. They kept running, down to the quad and from there to the main road that ran through the university. 

The road was full of empty, ransacked cars and dead bodies. Eventually, it was so congested they had to stop running.

“What now?” Mingyu asked, panting as he tried to catch his breath. They were a few miles from the university, the city skyline just in sight. It would be a long journey on foot to get to any building with shelter. 

They kept their heads down, moved quick and quiet just in case any zombies were lying in wait. 

“We keep moving. We stick together. We stay alive,” Junhui said, smirking as if it was the simplest answer in the world.

Considering the wasteland in front of them, it kind of was.

————

It was on his way home from the shelter a few days later that Mingyu noticed he was being followed. The nape of his neck tingled and he shuddered, cold even though it was summer. He took a step and heard a rustle, stopped in his tracks and whipped around.

The man behind him was beautiful. His hair was long, almost silver blonde. His clothes were a little tattered, and his face was an almost sickly pale color. There were lines of blue veins like spider webs visible under his skin.

One of his eyes was dark brown, but the other was yellow, unmistakable. 

The man was one of them. Zom — _ Partially Deceased_.

Mingyu’s hands tensed at his sides. He was pretty sure he hadn’t seen the man at the shelter. He would have remembered his face. While there were some that preferred not to wear makeup and contacts, most of them did. Wanted to blend in as much as they could. It made life easier for everyone. 

“What do you want?” Mingyu asked, words coming out harsh in the darkness.

The man stopped and held up his hands in front of him. They were shaking. He was shaking all over, actually, and if things had been different Mingyu might have thought he was just cold. 

The dead didn’t get cold. It was something else.

“I saw you come from the shelter. I — I need help. Some kids thought it would be funny to take all my meds and I’m due for my next dose. If I don’t take something soon I’ll —” the man stopped, took a deep breath and met Mingyu’s eyes. “Please. I don’t want to get picked up. I have to take —”

“I _ know _ what Neurotriptyline is,” Mingyu said sharply, cutting off whatever else the man wanted to say.

He sighed and let his hands unclench at his sides. Some of the people at the shelter had mentioned a band of teenagers that were harassing the partially deceased in the area. 

The truth was that a lot of them were at the shelter because that had nowhere to go. Kicked out by their families or with no families left at all. It was why Mingyu had started volunteering in the first place. None of them had asked for the world to end up the way it had. All they could do was make the best of it.

Mingyu stepped closer and held out his hand. The moonlight caught on the man’s face, made his skin translucent and his yellow eye gleam.

“What’s your name?” 

The man stepped closer and took his hand. He was still shaking, but he managed a crooked smile.

“Yoon Jeonghan. And you?”

“Mingyu. Last name’s not important.”

Jeonghan laughed, a small bright sound in the dimness.

“Well, Mingyu, do you know where I can get some Neurotriptyline?”

————

It had been weeks since they’d made it out of the basement and other than the occasional racoon and flock of crows there seemed to be nothing left alive in the city. It made finding supplies easier. There was no one competing for bottled water or canned food, but it made finding those supplies more dangerous. Every zombie in earshot of their footfalls had to be fought off and dealt with. 

It was sort of amazing how quickly Mingyu stopped being queasy every time he cracked a zombie’s head open. At first he felt bad. They looked so much like people, it was hard to believe that he wasn’t taking a life, that he wasn’t hurting them. The desire to live and to keep his friends alive won out, and Mingyu had become pretty efficient at swinging his bat. He was hoping they’d stumble on some more substantial weapons, but it seemed unlikely. They were lucky to find another box of ammo for Minghao’s gun and a pistol for Wonwoo. It meant only two of them had to get in close range to kill.

They were somewhere between a convenience store and their current camp when it happened. Mingyu was walking with Minghao, chatting softly about sleeping in a mostly safe apartment complex instead of outside when Minghao suddenly froze, blood draining from his face as red bloomed like a rose on his shoulder. The bag of supplies he was carrying crashed to the blacktop. Mingyu stopped and turned to Minghao, ice in his veins. 

Minghao was...shot? 

Who—?

“Drop what you’re carrying. Now,” a voice said. Male. Up ahead. Mingyu spotted the muzzle of a shotgun sticking out of an open window on the second story.

Human. That was a _ human_.

Mingyu stood in front of Minghao and held his hands up, high above his head so the person could see that he was unarmed.

“Don’t shoot. We’re not —”

“I know you’re not dead. Doesn’t mean I won’t kill you.”

Mingyu felt like he was missing something. Shooting at humans, knowing they were human and shooting anyway. It didn’t make any _ sense_.

“I’m Mingyu. This is Minghao. Why are you shooting at us?”

The man made himself visible in the window, shotgun still aimed right at Mingyu’s chest. His eyes were cold, dark and hollow with something Mingyu knew all too well. His hair was blonde with enough black showing at the roots that Mingyu could see it even from the ground.

He wondered if the man would tell them his name.

He wondered if the man would kill them.

He looked between Mingyu’s chest and the slowly forming puddle of blood from Minghao’s arm before finally lifting the barrel away from them.

“Jihoon. Going on supply runs alone is dangerous. It’s easier to take what I can when I can get it. You two have what I need. You’ll either leave it there and walk away or I’ll kill you. It’s that simple.”

“_Give _ it to you? Do you know how long it took us —” Minghao gritted out from behind him, but Jihoon aimed the gun at them again in record time.

“Wanna try that again?” he called. He was grinning, just a little. A smirk at the corner of his lips. Mingyu felt sick.

Mingyu backed away from the window slowly, one hand up as he pulled Minghao along by his uninjured arm.

“We’re going, okay? That’s everything we have,” Mingyu said.

Jihoon pulled the gun away from them again. He was still grinning.

“Take care, you two. I’d hurry if I were you. They really like the smell of fresh blood.”

Mingyu could hear it. Shuffling in the building next to them. Footsteps behind.

They had to move.

Mingyu pulled Minghao hard, running as fast as he could toward their camp. It was close, and Mingyu had to take Minghao’s gun from his belt and shoot one of them. He missed the head and ended up shooting off its jaw, sinew and black blood streaming from its face as it chased them. 

By the time they made it back Minghao was white and shiny with sweat.

Junhui looked between them, the hole in Minghao’s shoulder, the gun in Mingyu’s hand. Anger was the most prominent thing on his face. There was some fear there too, but Mingyu was more worried about the force of Junhui’s rage as he was slammed into the wall of their apartment.

“You fucking _ shot him_?” Junhui growled out, his hand like a vice on Mingyu’s shoulder.

“No, _ god _, Junhui. I —”

Wonwoo was peeling Minghao’s shirt off at the kitchen table. Minghao hissed as the fabric caught on the clotted blood around the wound.

“Calm down Junhui. It wasn’t Mingyu. There was a man —”

Junhui whipped his head to Minghao, hand still tight on Mingyu’s shoulder.

“You saw another person? And he _ shot you_?”

Minghao grimaced and nodded. 

“Made us leave all the supplies, too.” 

Wonwoo was staring at the hole in Minghao’s shoulder. Pulling his shirt off had re—opened the wound, and blood trickled from Minghao’s arm sluggishly. Junhui finally let go of Mingyu’s shoulder and walked over to Minghao, kneeling in front of him.

He said something to Minghao in Mandarin. They didn’t speak it often, but when they did Mingyu always felt on edge. It had the same feeling as secrets.

Minghao’s eyes went wide, and he glanced at Mingyu before meeting Junhui’s eyes and nodding grimly.

Wonwoo turned to Mingyu and inclined his head to the kitchen proper.

“We need to find some alcohol. Anything for disinfectant. A first aid kit too, if there is one.”

Mingyu nodded quickly and set to work, opening the cabinets and braving the spoiled food in the fridge in hopes of finding what they needed.

He already knew. No one had to say it out loud.

They had to get the bullet out of Minghao’s arm, clean it and get the wound closed as well as they could. 

Mingyu opened a cabinet and shuddered. It was going to hurt.

Mingyu had finished searching every cabinet with no luck when Wonwoo walked in from the hall, rubbing alcohol, tweezers, and a box of large bandaids in hand. He had two hand towels and gave one to Minghao without a word.

Minghao was breathing heavily, either from fear of what was to come or pain finally setting in. Mingyu walked to his side and took his hand. Junhui, still in front of Minghao on the floor, took his other hand. 

Wonwoo set his mouth in a line, doused the tweezers in alcohol, and got to work.

————

There were days when Mingyu was sure that The Rising was just a fever dream. The bright light of his cell phone, the wifi he picked up from the coffee shop across the street, the hot shower he took every morning, the digital keypad for his apartment. It was hard to imagine that he’d really lived without all those things for two years, that his entire life had been about finding enough food to eat and a safe place to sleep.

The apartment was dark when he led Jeonghan up the stairs. Minghao was out and Wonwoo worked nights. If he was lucky, no one would be home for a while. He could slip Jeonghan in, get him meds and get him out completely unnoticed.

Jeonghan took his shoes off at the door, eyes roaming the bare walls of the apartment in a way that made Mingyu nervous. Not like he was going to steal. More like he was absorbing important information.

He walked into the kitchen and Jeonghan followed. In the artificial light, Jeonghan looked a lot more worse for wear than he had in the moonlight. He wasn’t wearing any makeup, his skin pale, bruised in spots that had decayed more than others. His brown eye was filmy like he’d had the contact in way too long. His hair was limp and dirty. 

Jeonghan probably didn’t have a place to live. Mingyu wondered, briefly, why he didn’t go to a shelter. He could get all the things he needed there, and yet he’d followed Mingyu home instead.

Mingyu started opening the kitchen drawers while Jeonghan pulled out a chair to sit in. He was shaking harder, hands balled into fists against his knees, breathing shallow and quick.

Mingyu opened half the drawers before he found it. Wonwoo’s emergency stash of Neurotriptyline, the magic drug that granted brain function to the partially deceased, made them as human as they could be. It was a clear liquid loaded into a special syringe, made to fit between the cervical vertebra to deliver the medicine straight to the brain. Mingyu’s stomach turned hot and sour as he walked toward Jeonghan.

He looked up at Mingyu, grinning even as his body wracked with tremors.

“Have you...done this before?” he stuttered out.

Mingyu shrugged. He hadn’t, but he’d seen some of the volunteers at the shelter administer the medication. It didn’t seem too hard.

Mingyu was in front of Jeonghan and instead of turning around he just buried his face in Mingyu’s abdomen, exposing a glimpse of the tiny hole in the back of his neck the government put there so he could have brain function.

The feeling of Jeonghan pressed into him was strange. It was fear, first and foremost, that raced through Mingyu’s veins. Jeonghan was a few unknown moments from turning rabid, his mouth too close to the soft flesh of Mingyu’s stomach. He’d be dead before there was time to react.

Under the fear was something Mingyu refused to name. The heat of Jeonghan’s breath on his skin raced through him. Jeonghan was beautiful, would be even more so if he got a shower and some new clothes. He was beautiful and Mingyu sucked in a breath when Jeonghan gripped his thighs, steadying himself as another wave of tremors wracked him.

“H—hurry,” Jeonghan gritted out, and Mingyu moved his hair out of the way and jabbed the syringe home.

It took a few minutes before the medication took effect. Jeonghan went lax against him, still shivering. Mingyu set the syringe on the table and ran his hand through Jeonghan’s hair. It was a habit really. Comforting was something ingrained in Mingyu’s DNA, and even if some would say people like Jeonghan didn’t deserve it, Mingyu couldn’t stop himself from offering it.

Jeonghan pushed back from him all at once, eyes wide and clear for the first time all night. He rubbed his hands over his face, ran them through his dirty hair, before finally looking back up at Mingyu.

“Thank you. God, thank you so much. You saved my life,” Jeongan breathed out. Mingyu waved a hand dismissively in front of him.

“It’s no trouble, just glad I could help.” Mingyu looked at the floor, let the sound of the second hand ticking fill the void that followed. 

Mingyu cleared his throat.

“Would you — uh — do you want to take a shower?” Mingyu asked hesitantly. There was a fine line between helping and offending. He didn’t want to make Jeonghan feel like he was pitying him, but he didn’t want to just...kick him back onto the streets either. Not when he had more to offer, more to give if Jeonghan would take it.

Jeonghan gave him a strange, calculating look.

“Are you sure it’s alright?” he asked. Mingyu nodded.

Jeonghan sighed and stood. 

“Okay. Lead the way.”

Mingyu pulled some spare towels from the closet in his room and dug out some fresh jeans and one of his smaller shirts. It wouldn’t be a perfect fit, but it would be better than what Jeonghan currently had.

“You should take that contact out. How long have you had it in?” Mingyu asked as he turned on the bathroom light, setting the towels and clothes on the counter.

Jeonghan shrugged but rubbed at his brown eye reflexively.

“I don’t really feel pain, you know. It doesn’t hurt even though they say it causes tissue damage.”

Mingyu pulled out Wonwoo’s emergency contact solution and passed it to Jeonghan.

“The shelter has some contacts. You can get everything you need there. Why don’t you —”

“Absolutely not,” Jeonghan rushed out, cutting him off. “I’d rather take my chances with strangers than go to one of those places.”

It made Mingyu pause. The shelters were volunteer organizations, but they were a government initiative too. Was Jeonghan wary of the government for some reason? Did Mingyu invite someone dangerous into his home?

They were questions he’d rather not know the answer to, so he left them unasked. Jeonghan pulled the contact out carefully and rinsed his eye with some of Wonwoo’s contact solution. Seeing him there, in the artificial light of the bathroom with his pale skin and yellow eyes made Mingyu hot all over, made his hands twitch at his sides reflexively, something inherently _ wrong _ with the visual.

He turned away and started the shower, turned back to Jeonghan with a sigh.

“Everything you need should be in there already. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”

Jeonghan gave him a strange look, grateful but wary, like a stray cat. Mingyu didn’t want to think about it too much. He slipped out of the bathroom and walked back into the kitchen just as the sound of the shower curtain sliding shut reached him.

There were a lot of things that Mingyu wanted to ask Jeonghan. Where was he from? Did he really have nowhere to go? He would probably never see him again, all things considered. Jeonghan seemed the type that was always on the move. Took small charities where he could find them and then moved to the next block, the next city. 

It didn’t seem like the kind of life that anyone should have. Mingyu had spent two years without a real home, his only sense of it coming from three boys. Jeonghan didn’t have to live that way. There was a secret there, but Mingyu would probably never know what it was.

Mingyu was snapped from his thoughts as two things happened at almost the same time. Jeonghan walked into the kitchen with a towel wrapped around his hips, eyes yellow, water streaming down his bare skin, and then the front door opened.

It was like watching a stop-motion film. Minghao looked at Mingyu, then Jeonghan, eyes widening as he took in yellow eyes, pale skin, the syringe on the kitchen table that Mingyu forgot to put back. He stood up and did his best to block Jeonghan from view, as if that would calm Minghao down somehow.

A series of expressions flew across his face. There was shock, first, then sadness, a crumbling thing that quickly gave way to anger. Minghao slammed the front door hard enough to rattle it on its hinges, stormed forward until he was right in front of Mingyu. 

“No,” Minghao said, hands shaking at his sides, balled tight into fists, “no, _ no, no_. Mingyu, you —”

Mingyu held his hands out in front of him, tried his best not to escalate the situation, but Minghao’s finger collided with his chest as he stepped closer.

“What the _fuck _ are you doing? Why is _that _ in our house? How could —”

Mingyu gripped Minghao by the shoulders.

“He needed some meds, okay? That’s it. I couldn’t leave him out there. You know what would happen if I left him. People would have gotten hurt.”

Minghao tore himself from Mingyu’s grip, eyes flashing with heat.

“Don’t act like this is some fucking..._ service _ you’ve done. You brought that here after I begged you, _ begged you _ to leave this shit outside. God, Mingyu, do you ever _think _ before you do _ anything_?”

It stung, in a strange way, for Minghao to say that to him. Mingyu spent two years helping to keep them all alive. He sighed heavily and looked at the ground. It cut something deep in him, that Minghao would say something so callous.

It was quiet for a long time. The only sound the ticking of the clock and Minghao’s harsh breathing.

Mingyu finally looked up and Minghao sighed, ran a hand roughly through his hair and tugged at the strands.

“Wonwoo can _ never _ know about this, do you hear me?” Minghao said, toneless and defeated. “Put his shit back where you got it, get _ that _ out of here, and never speak about this ever again.”

He turned and walked through the living room, avoiding Mingyu and Jeonghan entirely. He slammed the door to his room and something about it felt like a line in the sand, like Mingyu had really done something unforgivable.

He turned to Jeonghan in the quiet and he gave Mingyu a small, apologetic smile.

“I didn’t mean to cause any trouble,” he said softly, and Mingyu’s shoulders slumped.

“No, it’s —” Mingyu started, sighed and rubbed his face with both hands. “My roommates, they —” 

Jeonghan held up his hands in front of him, even as his towel slipped dangerously low on his hips.

“You don’t owe me any explanations. It’s okay. Let me go change and I’ll get out of here.”

Mingyu took in Jeonghan’s upper body, still damp from the shower. Water streamed down his skin from his hair, tiny trails Mingyu couldn’t help but follow. He didn’t have any scars, no wounds stapled shut or large areas of decay. He must have been pretty newly dead, maybe a few weeks before The Rising. Other than how pale he was and the color of his eyes he looked every bit as human as Mingyu did.

When he was dressed in Mingyu’s old clothes, makeup on his face but eyes still unmistakably yellow, Mingyu walked him down to the street.

Jeonghan gave him a smile that in any other context would have been flirtatious. It made something strange sing just under Mingyu’s skin. 

“Thank you, Mingyu. Really. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to repay you for what you did tonight.”

Mingyu ran a hand through the back of his hair, cheeks warm in the summer air.

“Stay safe, Jeonghan.” 

He turned down the street and walked away with a final wave. As Mingyu watched his form shrink into the distance he couldn’t help but wonder, like the air was whispering it into his mind.

How did Jeonghan die?

————

There was one day when the four of them stumbled on a case of soju. It was dusty but intact, the bottles green and beautiful and full. Junhui took 8 and shoved them in his bag, even as Minghao frowned.

“We have to stay alert, Junhui. We can’t afford to drink that stuff,” he murmured.

Junhui pouted, big doe eyes and full lower lip and Minghao just sighed and walked away.

They weren’t able to drink them until a few nights later. They found a deserted building and made their way to the rooftop, barricaded the door with gardening equipment and Mingyu tasted alcohol for the second time in his life under the light of the full moon.

At some point he was sitting with his back against the ledge. If he tipped his head back, back, _ all _the way back he could look out at the skyline. Before, it would have been lit up, each light like a soul, a mark on the world. But there was no electricity, no light except by fire or moon. 

Junhui sat next to him, leaned his head back against the concrete and grinned up at the sky. 

“I really like you, Kim Mingyu,” he said without preamble. Mingyu giggled, face warm from alcohol. Junhui flicked one eye open and laughed. 

He was pretty like this. They all spent so much time surviving. There weren’t many moments that Mingyu got to appreciate the boys he’d ended up with.

“I really like you too, Wen Junhui.”

Junhui sat up abruptly and turned to face Mingyu, leaned in like he was telling him a secret. His eyes were warm and hazy, mischievous in a way that made Mingyu hot all over.

Junhui was unpredictable, hard to read and harder to pin down, but that was what made him so likeable.

“Minghao. He’s in love with you, I think,” Junhui whispered, so loud Mingyu knew anyone within earshot had heard what he said. Mingyu blinked, looked around them only to see Minghao and Wonwoo sound asleep, sprawled over each other on a lounge chair. He focused back on Junhui with raised eyebrows.

“He’s in love with _ you_. That’s what you mean,” Mingyu said softly. 

It made more sense. Even sober, Mingyu was sure the three of them would be...something if he wasn’t around.

He looked down at his hands wrapped around the bottle. “Wonwoo loves you and Minghao loves you and I’m —”

Junhui’s lips were warm and unexpectedly dry against his, cutting off every thought in his soju addled brain that wasn’t the press of lips or the warmth of Junhui’s hand against his cheek.

It was so fast Mingyu was sure he’d imagined it, but when Junhui pulled back he grinned and licked his lips. Mingyu’s heart thudded against his ribs.

“It’s the end of the _ fucking _ world, Mingyu. We can do whatever we want. There’s no one to tell us we can’t.”

————

A few weeks after Mingyu let Jeonghan into his apartment he woke up to screaming. It wasn’t unusual for any of them to have nightmares. It was the way of the world. Living through The Rising left scars, visible and unseen, and even Mingyu woke up in a cold sweat as his mind tried to sort through the chaos of those two years.

It was Wonwoo. 

Mingyu swung out of bed and padded down the hall. Minghao’s door was open, and when Mingyu peered into Wonwoo’s room he was already sliding into the bed. Mingyu went in, slipped on the other side so the two of them had Wonwoo tucked between them.

He buried his face in Minghao’s shoulder and Mingyu rubbed his back. He was murmuring something too soft for Mingyu to hear, but Minghao sighed at the words and ran his hand through Wonwoo’s hair. 

“It’s what he asked for. You can’t keep blaming yourself.”

Wonwoo moved back from Minghao’s shoulder enough that Mingyu finally caught the words.

“We shouldn’t have done it. He could have come back, but we —”

Mingyu tucked himself tight against Wonwoo’s back, slid his arm across until his hand met Minghao’s waist, until all three of them were as close as they could be in the cramped space of Wonwoo’s bed.

“All we did was honor his last request. You would have done it for me, right? For Minghao?” Mingyu asked, lips pressed to the back of Wonwoo’s neck.

He shivered, breath harsh with some unnamed emotion between his and Mingaho’s bodies. Eventually, he nodded.

“It’s okay to miss him. It’s okay,” Minghao murmured against his skin. Wonwoo took a shaky breath and nodded again, sharp and quick. It was no time at all before he turned and buried his face in Mingyu’s chest and cried. 

Mingyu and Minghao shared a look over his head. Sadness, too, and something else. In another life, all four of them would be finishing college. Maybe they would have ended up in the same apartment, tucked into their two bedrooms with one for guests. Mingyu wouldn’t have to watch Minghao’s eyes go soft and warm when he rubbed Wonwoo’s back, full of some emotion Mingyu wasn’t a part of anymore.

“I hate them. Sometimes,” Wonwoo said softly, sniffling and rubbing his face against Mingyu’s chest. “It’s not fair. Some of them don’t have any remorse. It’s not fair that he’s gone and they get to live like nothing happened. I hate —”

Minghao shushed him gently, pulled Wonwoo until he turned back to face him, kissed him, gentle and easy. Mingyu’s heart seized at the sight, phantom aches from a different time, phantom echoes in the back of his mind. There was a time when they were all each others, when they shared everything, when lines were drawn so loosely they were hardly there at all.

_ It’s the end of the fucking world, Mingyu. We can do whatever we want._

Wonwoo fell asleep still tucked into Minghao’s chest, and Mingyu watched the two of them for a long time, mind racing until sleep finally claimed him, too.

————

Sometimes, Mingyu felt like an outsider in his own life. Two years during The Rising was like a lifetime. The four of them had become closer than close, could read each other from just an upturned corner of the mouth. 

People always said there was no time for romance when the world was ending, but that wasn’t entirely true. The first time Mingyu and Minghao kissed wasn’t for love. That was true enough. It was equal parts fear and exhaustion, loneliness and the desire to feel something, _ anything_, comforting and tangible. 

Mingyu sucked Minghao off in an alleyway while Wonwoo slept a few feet away and Junhui, on watch, pretended not to notice. Needs were needs. Comfort, touch, physical reminders of being alive. They all needed them, sometimes.

Junhui was the first one to start having nightmares. It made sense. He was always the first to charge into battle, the first to kill. He’d fought his way out of his dorm and into the basement where he found Minghao the first day. His roommate had been eaten in front of him, and some nights Junhui heard his screams in the darkness.

Mingyu thought about them a lot when he kept watch, his eyes scanning the darkness for any movement, ready to strike first and ask questions later. He wondered if Junhui and Wonwoo and Minghao would have all been together if things had been different. He wondered, sometimes, if he was somehow a replacement, a stand in. 

When the two of them lay together under the stars, when Minghao kissed him breathless, he could almost convince himself it wasn’t like that at all. 

But when he watched the three of them sleep, tangled together on their makeshift bed of boxes and blankets, he couldn’t help but think that they would be better without him there.

————

Mingyu took the long way back from the shelter, more to clear his head than anything. It had been a long week of teaching and volunteering, and he wasn’t quite ready to sit in the soft quiet of his apartment.

He almost jumped when Jeonghan fell into step next to him. He looked good, skin warmed from makeup, still in Mingyu’s old clothes. His hair was shiny and fell below his shoulders. His eyes were still yellow, though, and Mingyu felt something tug at his chest. 

He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a set of contacts without a word, passing them to Jeonghan who looked at his face with that strange, calculating expression before taking them.

“I’ve been meaning to keep a spare set in my apartment just in case,” Mingyu explained a little sheepishly. Jeonghan slipped them into his pocket with a small, secret kind of smile.

They were nearing a playground. It was the halfway point in Mingyu’s walk home. It was still pretty run down, weeds and rust and looking every bit as dystopian as the movies made life after zombies seem. Mingyu sat on one of the swings, watched as the sun dipped lower on the horizon. 

Jeonghan sat next to him, slipped the contacts from his pocket and put them in his eyes. He didn’t even need a mirror, but Mingyu also figured that not being able to feel pain helped him get them in his eyes easier.

When he looked back at Mingyu his eyes were brown, somehow warm under the artificial color.

“I guess I’m in your debt yet again,” he said, and there was something under the lightness of the comment that made Mingyu’s teeth ache. 

“You don’t —” Mingyu started, running a hand through his hair with a sigh. “You don’t owe me anything.”

Jeonghan’s laughed, a short, wry sound to match the smirk on his face.

“Do you have some kind of weird kink for it? Does helping people that terrorized you do it for you or something?”

Mingyu’s body ran hot with shame. There were probably some people that were like that. People that helped the partially deceased as some weird fetish. Hell, there was a red light district that Mingyu had only heard about once he started volunteering at the shelter, a secret place where the living and the dead engaged in acts that were too taboo to speak about publically. 

Mingyu just wanted to help. That was all the satisfaction that he got out of it. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to convince Jeonghan of that, though.

He shook his head and pouted, looked at the ground and felt every bit like one of the kids he taught, whiny and petulant.

Jeonghan laughed, really laughed, and when Mingyu looked up he was covering his mouth to muffle the sound. The sunlight hit his profile, and just like that he was glowing with warmth.

“I was teasing. You don’t seem like one of those types.”

Mingyu smiled with the corner of his mouth.

“You meet a lot of those types?”

Jeonghan shrugged. 

“Can’t be helped. Sometimes people want payment for helping me, and not necessarily in cash.”

Mingyu shuddered. He couldn’t imagine taking advantage of someone like that, but it made the way Jeonghan acted in his apartment much more justified, the way he’d been wary of taking too much. 

“I know it’s not my place, but why not just go to the shelter?” Mingyu asked. Jeonghan sighed and turned in the swing to face him.

“I’m — well — technically I’m a missing person,” Jeonghan said, and Mingyu’s mouth fell open at the unexpected answer. Of all things he thought Jeonghan would say, it wasn’t that he was running away.

The shelters were government run. Of course they would have missing person databases. Even four years later, loved ones were still desperately searching for those lost and left behind during The Rising. If Jeonghan went to one, they’d know who he was right away, would get him back to whoever reported him missing in the first place.

“You don’t want to be found?”

Jeonghan shook his head, hair a blonde curtain hiding his expression.

“It’s better. It’s better that I just disappear. I can’t — I don’t want to see my family anymore.”

Mingyu reached over and tucked Jeonghan’s hair behind his ear reflexively. He touched the coolness of Jeonghan’s cheek and jolted back, hand hanging in the air like he was frozen. Jeonghan smirked.

“I’ve managed to get all the way here without being found. I’m a long way from home, Mingyu, and I plan to keep it that way.”

Mingyu wondered what Jeonghan had done that made him run away. Was it something that happened during The Rising? Was it because of how he died?

His near perfect skin and how undecayed he was worried Mingyu somewhere deep in his chest. If it had been an accident it would show. If it had been —

Mingyu couldn’t think about it. Loss of life was so different before The Rising. _ Everything _ was so different before The Rising.

————

Junhui was _ loud_. The only exceptions were when he was asleep or when they were doing recon. Gathering food and bottles of water from deserted grocery stores was harder if zombies were chasing them down the aisles. 

“What if we’re the only people left?” Junhui asked before he moaned, loud and lewd, as if Mingyu and Minghao weren’t right outside the door on watch.

They were supposed to pretend not to hear, but something about the way Junhui said it made Mingyu’s whole body break out in goosebumps.

Wonwoo murmured something in reply, too low for Mingyu to understand.

“_Ahh fuck _ — if — if you wanna fuck around with Minghao or Mingyu —”

Minghao slammed his fist into the door and Mingyu jumped at the sound.

“We can hear you Junhui. God, can you _ please _shut him up?”

Wonwoo must have done something because Junhui moaned again, muffled. Mingyu’s mind wandered as he listened to their ragged breathing. He thought about the food they’d found, the zombie he’d hit so hard her head was just mush, the way Wonwoo was murmuring again, soft and low, filthy encouragements that had Junhui panting harshly against whatever was covering his mouth.

Mingyu had never seen what Junhui looked like when he came, but he’d heard it enough that it was like muscle memory, seeping into his subconscious until it was a part of him. 

He glanced over to Minghao who rolled his eyes.

“Don’t get any ideas about trying to be louder than him later. We’re lucky he hasn’t brought a whole pack of rabids over here.”

Mingyu nodded and hid a small smile as he turned away. 

It wasn’t until later that Mingyu had a chance to think about Junhui’s words.

“Would you — uh — ever want to?” Mingyu whispered to Minghao. They were on a rooftop again, different building, maybe even different city. It was hard to tell anymore. Minghao lifted his head from where it rested against Mingyu’s shoulder.

“Want to what?”

Mingyu felt his face go warm. He bit his lip as he sorted out the words in his mind.

“What Junhui said earlier. Would you want to be with him or Wonwoo?”

Minghao gave him that look, like Mingyu had said something so unbelievable that Minghao didn’t deem it worth his time to answer.

He huffed and rolled his eyes, settled back against Mingyu’s chest and was quiet for a long time before he finally spoke.

“Wonwoo, maybe. I used to have the biggest crush on Junhui when we first met. We, uh, hooked up once. I don’t think I’d want to do it again.”

Mingyu felt like he was underwater, blinking through the murkiness before he finally broke the surface. Minghao and Junhui. 

Minghao. 

Junhui. 

They’d already been together once, and if Mingyu knew anything about Minghao it was that he _ hated _ feelings.

If he didn’t want to sleep with Junhui again, it was guaranteed that there were too many feelings involved that Minghao didn’t want to deal with.

Minghao poked at his chest. 

“Well? What about you? Would you ever want to sleep with them?”

Mingyu hadn’t thought about it much, not since Junhui kissed him. Would he want to see Junhui come undone? Would he want Wonwoo to work whatever magic he had on Mingyu until he was as much a mess as Junhui always seemed?

“I don't — I’m not sure,” Mingyu admitted hastily, face burning. Minghao sighed.

“I know you. That means yes, but you’re scared someone would get hurt.” Minghao pressed a quick kiss against his neck. “It’s all hypothetical anyway. Junhui’s into some really kinky shit. He just said that to rile himself up. Don’t let it bother you too much.”

There were moments where things seemed easy enough to understand. Wonwoo and Junhui. Mingyu and Minghao. Two separate pairs, but no one was really dating, nothing was official. How could it be? The world was chaos all around them. 

As Minghao finally drifted off to sleep Mingyu thought about what he said. It made sense. Except for the rooftop, when Junhui kissed him and said_ I really like you Kim Mingyu_.

If Junhui was serious, then someone was going to get hurt.

————

It was Autumn, the leaves of trees that could still make them changing to yellows and reds, before Mingyu finally got the courage to ask Jeonghan.

They were sitting on a bench in the park. Mingyu was sipping a coffee, steam billowing up in the chill of the evening.

Jeonghan had added a loose sweater to the clothes Mingyu had given him, sleeves long enough to cover his hands. It wasn’t because of the cold, of course, but to appear as human as possible. Even without makeup, Jeonghan hardly looked dead. He didn’t really need much help.

Mingyu blew on his coffee, took a sip and looked up at the sky. Stars were starting to appear in the dimness of night, and the streetlight was broken. They would have a perfect view once night fell.

“Jeonghan, how did you die?”

Jeonghan didn’t recoil. He didn’t jolt or look down in shame. He didn’t react at all, really. Mingyu could feel his eyes like a weight against the side of his face, but when he turned to look Jeonghan was staring up at the sky.

“It’s not a very exciting story.” He sighed, ran a hand through his long blonde hair and looked at the ground with a wry smile. “Spontaneous arterial rupture. A rare complication from a genetic disorder. A one in a million chance, and I just happened to be the lucky one.”

Mingyu sucked in a breath.

“One minute I was studying for midterms and the next thing I knew I was waking up in a casket. Well, I didn’t remember that at first. The first thing I _ actually _ remembered was waking up in a hospital bed at the center, but the medication causes flashbacks.”

It was unimaginable. Here and then gone. It must have been so quick. Depending on the artery, it might have taken only minutes. Mingyu wondered if Jeonghan felt any pain, hoped that it had been easy and painless. It explained how he looked so perfect, at least.

Mingyu’s mind finally caught up to Jeonghan’s words.

“Flashbacks?” he asked. Jeonghan blinked and nodded.

“Neurotriptyline repairs connections in the brain. Flashbacks are an uncomfortable side effect, but it means the medicine is working like it should, or that’s what they told us in the center.”

“How much do you remember from The Rising?”

Jeonghan was quiet for a long time. The sun slipped below the horizon and left them in a cool dimness. Mingyu took a sip of his coffee, relished the warmth that flowed through him.

“It’s just flashes. Streets, other Partially Deceased people. I made it to my neighborhood at one point. A pack chased my childhood friend into the street and ate him. I can still hear the way he screamed.”

Mingyu shivered. 

“People blame the partially deceased because it’s easy. Some don’t have remorse for what they did during The Rising, but some humans don’t either,” Mingyu said as he ran a hand through his hair, warm from being wrapped around his coffee. “I think we all did the best we could to survive.”

Jeonghan let out a short, bitter sound. He looked at Mingyu, eyes hard and cold. For the first time since they’d met, Mingyu wondered how Jeonghan really felt about The Rising and what came after.

“I didn’t _ want _ to die. If I could go back and change it somehow, I’d do it without a second thought. But I didn’t ask to come back. The way my mom and sister kept looking at me — ” Jeonghan looked down at his knees and bit his lip. “Like I was some sort of fucking _ miracle_. They were so sad, but so happy. It made me sick to look at them. I had to get away.”

Mingyu reached out and put a tentative hand on Jeonghan’s shoulder. His head jerked up, and when they met eyes Jeonghan’s were wide. He almost looked scared.

Jeonghan was cool under his hand. Dead bodies couldn’t produce heat, after all. It made sense, but Mingyu didn’t really mind. Jeonghan felt solid, real.

“I haven’t seen my family since before The Rising. I don’t know why, exactly. I just don’t want to see them. The things I did — I can’t — I don’t want to see how much we’ve all changed.”

Jeonghan leaned forward, putting more of his weight against Mingyu’s hand.

“The government says they stopped the apocalypse, but it doesn’t really feel that way, does it?”

_ It’s the end of the fucking world_, Mingyu thought. A whisper from the past.

And, as if Jeonghan could hear it too, he smiled.

————

Junhui had a page from his monthly planner that he’d scribbled notes on. It had stayed in his pocket even when he was chased to the basement of their dorm, and he used a pen they’d found there to keep track of the days. He’d made three lines on each day. October, probably. According to Junhui’s makeshift calendar, it was Halloween. 

“If things were normal, I’d be at Soonyoung’s party right now,” Junhui pouted, falling back against the trunk of a tree. They were in one of the city’s parks, relaxing after their latest supply haul. They’d found some warmer clothes, too, which were not only appreciated but desperately needed. The weather was turning colder every day. The leaves on the tree Junhui was lounging against were burnt orange and crimson, a small circle of them at the base of the trunk. It was cold enough at night that the four of them had to sleep huddled together, sandwiched in three blankets. 

“Soonyoung always threw the best Halloween parties,” Junhui continued, sighing wistfully, “I was going to wear the costume from my recital this Spring.”

“Recital?” Mingyu asked. Junhui turned his head to look at him. “Like dance?”

Junhui smiled softly and nodded, which made his smile stretch into a grin not unlike like a pleased cat.

“I major in Dance.” Junhui sighed. “Majored, I guess. Now I won’t even get to see if Soonyoung can outdrink me.”

Minghao was sitting on the grass next to their supply bag. His newly acquired sweater was black and so big one of his shoulders was always on display. He had a scar, shiny and pink, the edges jagged from a lack of stitches and Wonwoo’s inexperience in digging bullets out of people. 

Minghao tipped his head back to look at the two of them. 

“If Soonyoung is still alive I’m sure he’s doing his best to keep up the Halloween tradition of getting shit-faced and sleeping with as many art students as he can talk into his bed.”

“I know,” Junhui sighed loudly and pouted, hand coming up to rub at his temples, “and what are we going to do in celebration of Halloween? No costumes, no makeup, no alcohol.” Junhui slid down until he was sitting in the grass, back still against the tree. “And you’re the only art student for miles.”

Minghao fell back in the grass and rolled his eyes.

“Alcohol is too risky. Last time you were so hungover we had to take turns carrying you.” He put a hand up to his eyes. “And if you _ really _ wanted me to sleep with you, you’d put in more effort.”

Mingyu couldn’t hold back his laugh, and Junhui was quick to join him. It was the most relaxed Mingyu had felt in weeks. Talking about college, about normal things, made Mingyu feel almost hopeful. 

Maybe they’d go back to that soon. 

Maybe it wasn’t the end of all things.

The last rays of sunlight were dipping below the horizon when they heard shouting. The three of them were on their feet instantly, weapons in hand.

Wonwoo was running toward them, as fast as his legs would carry him. 

A pack. Five zombies, at least. They were closing in on Wonwoo fast. Mingyu wondered if they’d be able to get to him in time.

Wonwoo was supposed to be on watch, walking the perimeter of the park so the others could relax. He must have been ambushed.

There was something frightening about the breeze that rippled through the trees in the park as the sky went dark and the stars became visible.

Mingyu looked between Minghao and Junhui, and they all ran toward Wonwoo at the same time. 

Minghao was the first to act, stopping to aim at the zombie closest to Wonwoo, who could only dodge left and hope that Minghao didn’t hit him accidentally. He hit the zombie in the neck, and black blood gushed out as it fell, crawling desperately forward. 

Junhui was the first to catch up to Wonwoo, pulling the boy behind him as he plunged his knife into the zombie’s neck, finishing the job by cutting off its head.

There wasn’t much time to celebrate the small victory as the rest of the zombies closed in. Mingyu went for one of the zombies on the edge of the group, an old man with filmy yellow eyes and a jagged scar across his forehead. He lunged for Mingyu, but he dodged easily, turning to swing his bat into the back of the zombie’s head.

The killing didn’t bother him anymore, but the sound of the skull cracking, the dull but sharp sound, rang in Mingyu’s ears every night before sleep claimed him. The zombie dropped to the ground and Mingyu brought the bat down again and again, until the body stopped moving and bits of gray mixed with the black blood on the ground.

Wonwoo shot one of them in the head, point blank. Blood splattered across his face, and a few weeks ago they would have been terrified of turning from it, but they’d learned over time that exposure to their blood didn’t cause any change. A bite was probably a death sentence, but Mingyu didn’t care to test it and find out. 

Junhui slashed one of them across the chest. Blood from his knife was raining down all around him, and he had an almost manic grin as he shoved the knife through its eye. Taking out the brain was the key. Mingyu and Minghao turned on the last zombie at the same time, Minghao’s gun aimed at the head and Mingyu’s bat held up like he was on the baseball field instead of in a city park.

Minghao shot and Mingyu charged in, slamming the zombie in the head even as it dropped down, bullet hole in its forehead.

When it was all over, Junhui’s cream sweater was streaked with blood, splashes of it on his face. He was panting. They all were. Mingyu had to squat down to catch his breath.

Clouds parted, and the moon was huge, heavy and glowing in the dark, casting enough light to show how bloody they all were.

“I guess you got your wish after all,” Mingyu said when he could breathe normally. 

The other three turned to look at him, and he coughed, feeling sheepish as he continued.

“Junhui. Seems like we did something worthy of Halloween.”

Junhui grinned with all his teeth, and with the knife at his side, still dripping blood, he looked like an actor in a horror movie. Frighteningly handsome.

“Well, Happy Halloween everyone. Let’s find somewhere to crash for the night,” Junhui said, flicking the last of the blood off his knife.

The wind gusted through the trees again, but Mingyu wasn’t sure if it was the look in Junhui’s eyes or the cold that made him shiver.

————

The next time Mingyu saw Jeonghan was two nights before Halloween. His long blonde hair was chopped short, fringe just below his eyes. It made him physically stop in his tracks.

“Your hair,” Mingyu said dumbly, staring at the man in front of him.

Jeonghan ran a hand through it casually.

“I wanted to change it. It was starting to look bad.”

“But it won’t grow back, will it?” Mingyu asked. He was pretty sure that the partially deceased were stuck just the way they were. The medication they took didn’t restore protein synthesis.

Jeonghan shrugged.

“I don’t mind. I think it makes me look more handsome.”

“You look good no matter what you do,” Mingyu said, the words out before he even considered what he was saying. His face went hot and Jeonghan looked at him with a devilish grin. 

“Oh? You think I’m good looking?” he asked, coy and teasing. 

Mingyu huffed, the air leaving him in a white cloud.

Jeonghan grinned and Mingyu felt like groaning. It seemed like he’d backed himself into a corner, and no matter what he said, Jeonghan was going to believe whatever he wanted.

And really, Jeonghan _ was _ incredibly handsome. Mingyu didn’t think being partially deceased really changed that.

“Do you have anything planned for tonight?” Mingyu asked finally. Changing the topic was the only way to get the swirling in his stomach to settle.

Jeonghan grabbed his hand and laced their fingers together. His hand was cool, but not unpleasant, not clammy or waxy or stiff. He felt like any other human.

“I want to show you something,” he said, giving Mingyu a tug forward. Mingyu tripped over his feet a little but managed to keep himself upright. He let Jeonghan lead him away, down a side street and into the heart of the city. 

It was a part of town Mingyu didn’t frequent. His apartment, the school he taught at and the shelter where he volunteered were all on the same side of the city, but Jeonghan seemed very familiar with the area.

They went down the alley of an apartment complex and Jeonghan finally dropped his hand. He reached up and started climbing the fire escape, pulling himself up the ladder easily. When he made it to the first landing he looked down at Mingyu with a smirk.

“Well, come on.”

So Mingyu followed. They climbed up and up, all the way to the top floor of the complex before Jeonghan slid in through an open window. He led them through an abandoned apartment and out into the hall, up the last set of stairs until they were finally on the rooftop.

Mingyu hadn’t been on a rooftop in a long time. Not since The Rising. There hadn’t been a need to go up so high since then.

Even though so many windows were bright with light, Mingyu could still count every star above his head. He looked up with a small, surprised sound and Jeonghan brushed past his shoulder.

“Pretty, right? This is where I’m staying these days.”

Mingyu unglued his eyes from the sky and looked around the rooftop. There was a single blanket and a small backpack tucked into the corner between the stairs and the edge of the building. Was that really all Jeonghan had? Was he really sleeping on a rooftop in the middle of the city?

“I’ve slept on a roof before,” Mingyu said instead of asking any of the things he wanted to. It wasn’t really his place to say anything to Jeonghan about his life. “It’s not the most comfortable place.”

Jeonghan shrugged and ran a hand through his hair.

“It’s quiet up here. I don’t have to worry about getting harassed by teenagers or policemen. This apartment complex only has a few tenants and they all live on the first three floors. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.”

Mingyu walked closer to Jeonghan, close enough that their arms were touching. He could feel the barely there warmth of his body. They locked eyes, Jeonghan’s brown ones somehow full of life and mischief even though his real eyes were hidden underneath, covered from view.

Minguyu felt a strange swirling under his skin. Something about Jeonghan drew him in, and like a magnet, like facing the top of a roller coaster, there was an inevitable conclusion he was being pulled toward.

All the lights surrounding them went out at once. A blackout. With nothing but the moon and stars to give any light, Mingyu leaned down and kissed him.

Jeonghan’s lips were soft. Mingyu wasn’t sure what he expected them to feel like. Dry maybe. Cracked. Gross, somehow. But kissing him was just like kissing anyone else. He let out a soft, surprised noise before reaching a hand to the back of Mingyu’s neck, pulled until their bodies were pressed together.

Jeonghan’s hands left a fire, line after line of heat everywhere he touched. Mingyu put his hand on Jeonghan’s cheek, tilted his head for a better angle. Jeonghan shivered, hands pressed into the small of Mingyu’s back. 

It was when Jeonghan’s tongue slid teasingly against his bottom lip that Mingyu realized what was happening.

Jeonghan was beautiful. 

A stranger that Mingyu hardly knew. 

A _ zombie_.

Mingyu’s whole body went hot and then cold, chilled like a fever. He pulled back, stepped away from Jeonghan and took a deep breath. 

Jeonghan’s eyes searched his, lip trapped between his teeth like he wasn’t sure what to say or do. 

Mingyu remembered what Jeonghan had told him. There were people that were..._ with _ him sometimes. Kissing Mingyu probably didn’t make him feel like his entire world was shattering and rebuilding itself.

Mingyu felt like it hadn’t really happened, that kissing Jeonghan was some sort of fever dream even as his lips tingled from the kiss. Jeonghan took a small step toward him, tried to close the distance again but Mingyu held up his hands.

“I just — can you —” Mingyu’s thoughts were all jumbled. He didn’t know where to start, what he could even _ say _ to Jeonghan. 

Under the light of the moon Jeonghan’s skin glowed impossibly pale. A cloud passed overhead, and suddenly the two of them were in near darkness. Jeonghan’s eyes flashed yellow, his mind playing tricks, but Mingyu backed up all the same until he was flush with the door that led him up here in the first place.

“Mingyu, I’m sorry. I should have stopped this. I —”

The part of Mingyu that was rational immediately felt bad. _ He _ was the one that kissed Jeonghan. Part of him wanted to keep doing it, to kiss him, press against him, feel him.

Was Mingyu _ allowed _ to kiss Jeonghan? Was he really okay with that? God, what would Minghao think? What would Wonwoo say?

“I’m sorry —” Mingyu said, eyes falling away to the concrete of the roof. “I need to think about this. I need to —”

And before Jeonghan even had time to open his mouth, Mingyu had shut the door behind him.

————

It was sometime near Christmas. It was bitterly cold, and as much as they all wanted to stay huddled together next to a fire they had to keep moving. The zombies didn’t feel cold, their appetites were never satisfied. It was move or die, just like it always was, but something about Junhui softly humming Christmas carols was unbelievably comforting. 

They’d managed to find an apartment with windows that were still in tact, sheets that were musty but clean. There were some cans in the cupboard that were still good. Overall, a Chrstimas miracle. They barricaded the door and pulled the curtains shut, lit a few candles for light and made a bed on the floor out of spare blankets they found.

There was a small gas cooktop that Mingyu managed to get working. It was their first hot meal in months, canned soup heated up, but he didn’t think he’d taste anything so good again in his life. He made a huge pot, filled everyone’s mugs as many times as they wanted. It was Christmas, or close enough to it. Mingyu figured they might as well celebrate while they could.

Wonwoo fell asleep first, a soft, gentle smile on his face. Minghao went next, wrapped in a hoodie he’d found in the closet, his face buried in a pillow and arm thrown casually across Wonwoo’s chest.

Mingyu watched them quietly until Junhui sat next to him on the couch. He was wearing some new clothes too, a light gray sweater and new jeans. They were a little baggy, too big, but they were in much better shape than the ones he’d had before.

“You know, zombies aside this isn’t so bad,” he said, his eyes fixed on the two sleeping boys.

Mingyu laughed softly.

“It’s like camping, I guess. Miss hot water though. And electricity.”

Junhui turned toward him, back against the arm rest. He had one knee pressed into his chest, his arm wrapped around it.

Junhui was, as he always was, incredibly handsome. It made Mingyu a little nervous, even after so many months. 

It was there, on the couch in the middle of winter, candles burning low, that Junhui kissed Mingyu for the second time.

It wasn’t as hesitant as the first time. Junhui moved fast, leaned close and pulled Mingyu forward by his shirt, slammed their lips together. His lips parted right away and Mingyu moaned, slipped his tongue inside before he even had time to think. Junhui crawled into his lap and Mingyu’s fingers trailed under his sweater, rubbed across his warm skin.

Kissing Junhui was good, hot and urgent but with some undercurrent of feeling. Mingyu traced Junhui’s tongue with his for a long time, splayed his hands across Junhui’s back and stomach and up the smooth planes of his chest, shivering when Junhui moaned in his mouth.

When they broke apart, Junhui was smiling, coy and dangerous. He bumped their foreheads together.

“I really like you, Kim Mingyu. I really like Wonwoo, and Minghao too, even if he pretends to hate me most of the time.”

Falling for three people. Mingyu had never heard of anything like that. It seemed like someone was going to end up hurt. He had a feeling it was going to be him.

Junhui’s nose brushed his as he gave him a quick kiss.

“Before all this, my friends used to tease me. I fall in love too easily. Every day with someone new.”

“Is that why you were asking Wonwoo about it before? Do you — is being with one person —”

Junhui pulled back enough to cross his arms over his chest. He searched Mingyu’s face for a long time before he spoke again.

“I meant what I said before. On the roof. It’s the end of the fucking world. There’s no one left to say we can’t.”

Mingyu let the idea roll around his mind. He’d been with Minghao more times than he could count. He’d already kissed Junhui twice. And Wonwoo — well, he was definitely good looking. 

Feelings were complicated, though. Mingyu couldn’t imagine Wonwoo being okay with an arrangement like that. He seemed wholly devoted to Junhui, and Mingyu had barely been able to even casually mention it to Minghao without tripping over his words.

“If we’re really the only ones left then you’re out of options. You’ll have to settle for us. Maybe forever. Do you think they’ll want to?”

Junhui uncrossed his arms and looped them around Mingyu’s neck, glancing back at Minghao and Wonwoo before meeting his eyes again.

“I think they won’t want to admit it at first, but they’ll come around eventually. Minghao can be stubborn with his feelings, but I’ve known him for a long time. He can’t hide from me.”

Mingyu planted a kiss to Junhui’s neck just to watch him shudder. 

“It’s pretty strange, but I suppose I don’t mind.”

Junhui grinned.

“The stranger the better.” 

Mingyu lost track of how long they spent on that couch, kissing, touching, relaxed and warm.

When they were finally tucked into bed, Mingyu was on Minghao’s side and Junhui was on Wonwoo’s side and the distance between them felt significant, like a secret. Maybe because it kind of was.

He lay awake for a long time, a habit from keeping watch. It was hard to sleep knowing no one was protecting them. 

_ It’s the end of the fucking world_, he thought as his eyes finally slid closed. _ Merry Christmas_.

————

Mingyu didn’t realize he was screaming until he opened his eyes. 

“It’s okay. Just a dream,” Wownwoo murmured, his hand sliding into Mingyu’s hair automatically. 

Wonwoo was in his bed. He’d been dreaming. A nightmare. It was fading fast now that he was awake, but he could still see the vivid red of blood, hear the screaming. 

He let out a shuddering breath and pressed his fingers into his eyes.

“You’re not at work,” he stated. Wonwoo huffed.

“I took the weekend off. Minghao says I’ve been working too much.”

Mingyu moved his hand and blinked away the spots in front of his eyes. In the dimness he could just make out Wonwoo’s soft smile. He didn’t wear it often. It changed him from someone strikingly handsome into someone beautiful.

“You _ have _been working too much,” Mingyu said around a yawn. He leaned into Wonwoo’s hand. It was still in his hair but at the pressure he started petting through it again. “You’re gonna burn out if you don’t take care of yourself. And I don’t mean just eating and sleeping.”

Wonwoo sighed and shifted closer to Mingyu.

“I’m not as...fragile as Minghao makes me seem. Not about work and not about your volunteer stuff.”

Mingyu’s face went hot as his mind made the leap from the shelter to Jeonghan. He still hadn’t given much thought to what had happened, but just as Wonwoo’s gentle hands soothed the last remnants of the nightmare away, Jeonghan’s blonde hair and mischievous smile did the same.

“It’s not always easy for me, either. Sometimes I wonder if the people at the shelter killed anyone, but it doesn’t really matter, does it? We were all just trying to survive.” Mingyu sighed. “I think about Junhui sometimes. What he’d think of the world we’re living in.” 

Wonwoo’s hand went still in his hair. Mingyu met his eyes and Wonwoo took a deep, deliberate breath.

“I just — I miss him so much. Every day. I wonder, too.” Wonwoo had a small, private smile. “He was always so trigger happy. I bet he’d still shoot first and ask questions later. We’d go bankrupt bailing him out of jail.”

Mingyu grinned even as his eyes went blurry. Junhui was the most unique, irreplaceable person Mingyu had ever met. One of a kind. 

Wonwoo took his hand under the sheets, giving him a squeeze before he continued. 

“I think about the life we could have had together if things had been different. The hardest is wondering if he would have —”

Mingyu ran his thumb across the top of his hand.

“You don’t have to say it. I know.”

Wonwoo shook his head, a sharp jerk.

“No, I — I need to. What if he could have come back? If we took him to the military, could he have? _ God_, he would have been so mad at me.” Wonwoo let out a small, sad kind of laugh. “But he’d be here. I would still love him, even if he was partially deceased.”

Mingyu lifted his head off the pillow, surprised yet again as Wonwoo wiped the silent tears off his cheeks. 

“I’ll never stop loving him, or you, or Minghao. If volunteering helps you in some way, I don’t want you to feel like you can’t or shouldn’t do it. I know I’ve said that I hate them, but you know I don’t — not really,” Wonwoo said, his voice rough.

Mingyu knew. It was hard, it was so hard to live with people that had killed mercilessly. Mingyu found comfort in remembering that none of them had asked for it, that something had happened that scientists still had no clue about, that all they could do was make the most of what they had.

Minghao, well, Mingyu wasn’t sure if there was any comfort for him at all. Outside of their apartment, away from Wonwoo and Mingyu, did Minghao feel safe? Was he okay behind his mask of cold composure?

Wonwoo wasn’t okay, but he was trying. He was trying to be the best person he could be. So he found comfort in continuing the fight, in locking up rabid zombies and keeping people from getting killed. Mingyu couldn’t fault him for it, even if some mornings Wonwoo would slam doors and scream and cry until there wasn’t anything left in him. 

They were all they had. Nothing else mattered, but Mingyu wanted to live as normally as he could. 

He pulled Wonwoo’s back against his chest and buried his face into his hair. Wonwoo sighed but settled against him with no protest.

Mingyu’s mind wandered to Jeonghan. His soft blonde hair and gorgeous eyes. The way he smiled with the corner of his mouth, mischievous and secretive but somehow still warm. What did he think of it?

Did Jeonghan see himself as different? 

Human or zombie? Or something in between?

He still wasn’t sure how he felt about the kiss. Jeonghan was human enough, in the ways that mattered. What was holding him back?

Was it what Jeonghan had been during The Rising? Was it the idea of him caked in dirt and blood, hunting humans like an animal?

Was it Junhui’s blood soaking into the blacktop?

Mingyu’s mind wandered back to Wonwoo’s words. _ I’d still love him, even if he was partially deceased. _

“Do you think it’s okay? Do you think you can fall in love with someone that’s partially deceased?”

Wonwoo’s soft breathing was the only reply.

————

In the frozen weeks before spring Minghao got a fever. One day he was scouting for supplies and the next he was a shaking, sweaty mess on their blankets. 

“We have to keep moving,” Wonwoo murmured, sipping from a bottle of water before passing it to Junhui.

“Do we just carry him? Doesn’t seem like a good idea,” Junhui said softly.

It made Mingyu nervous. Junhui was almost never quiet. Anxiety fluttered through his chest like hummingbirds.

“We can’t,” Mingyu said finally, taking the water bottle Junhui passed to him. He sipped carefully before continuing. “We need to let him rest today. We’ll just have to keep our guard up.”

Wonwoo looked at him with raised eyebrows while Junhui just nodded, lips quirked up in a knowing way.

There was no way for them to tell if Minghao was going to get better. Mingyu spent most of the morning running his hand through Minghao’s damp hair, sitting him up for an occasional sip of water.

He looked over as much of Minghao’s skin as he could see. No cuts. Hopefully not bacterial. There weren’t antibiotics anymore. They could try, hope against hope that there were some left in the raided pharmacies, but Mingyu knew better.

Either Minghao would get better or he wouldn’t. 

When Wonwoo put his hand on Mingyu’s shoulder he jumped, startled out of his own thoughts. He looked around, realized the sun was lower in the sky than it should have been.

“You need to rest or you’ll get sick too,” Wonwoo said, rubbing Mingyu’s shoulder before giving him a little push. Mingyu sighed and made his way to the other end of their makeshift bed, close enough that he could reach out and feel Minghao with his foot but far enough away that he could pretend the germs couldn’t reach him.

He fell asleep quickly, black dreamless sleep, and when he woke up the next morning Minghao was curled into his side, eyebrows furrowed and panting.

Mingyu stroked his cheek, soft and fond and so worried he felt like his heart was ripping out of his chest.

“Do you think you’ll be okay to move today? We’ve got to get out of here,” Mngyu whispered.

Minghao’s eyes cracked open. He was pale, skin still shiny with sweat but he didn’t seem to be shaking.

“Gotta try. We can’t stay anymore.”

And so, after Wonwoo and Junhui woke up they packed and headed out. Mingyu kept his arm around Minghao’s waist while they walked.

They made it three miles before Minghao collapsed. Mingyu had walked just a little ahead to ask Wonwoo something, and when he turned around Minghao’s face was white, eyes fluttering as he hit the ground.

It was one of those moments that didn’t feel real. Mingyu felt like he was back in his dorm room, locked inside with Wonwoo while they listened to the screams and groans of students being eaten alive. His knees hit the dirt as he reached Minghao, hands shaking as he tried to figure out where to touch him to see if he was okay. Should he check for a pulse? Should he shake him?

Just as he reached out Minghao’s eyes blinked open. Mingyu pulled him against his chest, squeezed him tight even though he probably shouldn’t.

“Are you okay?” Mingyu croaked out, voice thick.

Minghao nodded against his chest like he didn’t trust himself to speak.

“I’m carrying you.”

Minghao tried to pull back from his chest. He probably wanted to protest, but Mingyu wasn’t going to listen to it. Who gave a shit about pride? It’s the end of the fucking world, an echo in Junhui’s voice. He wanted to tell Minghao exactly that, but instead he pulled him against his chest bridal style and stood up. Minghao was always slender, but their rationing had made him even more so. It was amazing that it had taken so long for any of them to get sick. They weren’t exactly living in the most hygienic or comfortable conditions, eating and drinking just enough to stay alive.

Mingyu carried Minghao without a word. He didn’t know how to explain it. If Minghao asked him why, he didn’t think he’d find the right words.

_ I can’t do this without you. I don’t want to do this without you. I _ _ — _

Well, was there really a place for love in the apocalypse?

It took Minghao a week, seven full days, to recover completely. It was agonizing to watch. He clung to Mingyu during those days, kept him close and tucked himself against Mingyu’s side whenever he could. He only ate if Mingyu made him. 

Once, he woke up screaming, eyes wide and face flushed. Mingyu couldn’t tell if it was the fever or the dream that made him look so out of it. He pulled Minghao close and rubbed his back, murmured softly to him until Minghao finally relaxed against him.

“Don’t know what I’d do without you,” Minghao murmured into the skin of his neck. “I love you.”

The words, spoken aloud for the first time, shifted Mingyu’s entire world just off center. 

Love.

Mingyu kissed Minghao’s forehead tenderly, held his lips against his skin until Minghao’s breathing went deep and even.

“Just get better, okay? Please.”

Maybe there was a place for love in the wasteland of the world, after all.

————

It was November, over a hot breakfast he made out of the goodness of his heart, that Mingyu decided to talk about Jeonghan.

“I want to bring Jeonghan over. Do either of you mind?” he asked around a mouthful of food.

Minghao narrowed his eyes, small and dangerous. Wonwoo, just home from work, grunted.

“Who is Jeonghan?” Minghao asked. He pushed his breakfast around the plate absently. 

“A friend. From the shelter.”

He left out the part where they hadn’t seen each other for a few weeks. It wasn’t important.

Minghao’s fork clinked roughly against his plate and Wonwoo’s eyes opened fully for the first time since he’d sat down.

“So he’s a zombie?”

Mingyu scoffed. 

“Don’t call him that,” Mingyu said, mouth sour, “but yes, he’s Partially Deceased.”

Wonwoo sighed, a weary sound that was heavier than the ten hour shift he’d just worked.

“He the one you used my emergency stash on?”

Mingyu turned to Wonwoo with wide eyes.

“How did you —”

Wonwoo huffed, somewhere between scorn and amusement.

“You don’t think I check that stuff? It’s for _ emergencies_. Of course I keep track of how many doses are left.”

Mingyu kept his eyes fixed on his plate. He really didn’t know what Wonwoo was going to say, what he thought of the situation. Wonwoo was trying, but acceptance was much harder when facing it head on. If Minghao was right, Wonwoo was the most jaded of the three of them, fear and loathing of the partially deceased too deep in his bones to ever really be okay with them.

It was quiet for a long time, and Mingyu almost got up from the table when Wonwoo finally spoke again.

“You kept him from going rabid right? That’s why you brought him here.”

Mingyu finally looked up. Wonwoo’s eyes were softer, kinder than he expected them to be. 

“Yeah. He was shaking really bad. I don’t think he would have lasted another hour.”

Wonwoo nodded.

“Just be careful next time. There’s always a chance they’re too far gone for the meds to work. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

It was like another line in the sand, but this one had Wonwoo on the same side as him. 

He stood up and took his plate to the sink, rinsed it off before turning back to Mingyu and Mingao.

“You can bring him by as long as Minghao is okay with it. You’ve always been a good judge of character. I trust you.”

Wonwoo left the kitchen and went to his bedroom, shut the door softly behind him. He’d be asleep for most of the day. Mingyu would go to work and Minghao would too, and somehow things would keep going. 

Minghao looked at him and he was pretty sure they were both making the same shocked expression.

Minghao cleared his throat.

“I’m not — I don’t —” he sighed and pressed his fingers into his forehead, took a deep breath before he continued. “I don’t hate them, Mingyu. Everything is just so _ fucked_. I trust you, and I’m — I’m sorry if I’ve been hard on you about this whole thing. Junhui would — I think he would have accepted them, in the end. Like you.” He laughed, a soft but cynical sound. “The two of you are alike in the strangest ways.”

Minghao stood up and took his plate to the sink. 

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I trust you, too. But if he does anything weird, anything at all —”

Mingyu looked down at the table and grinned. 

“I know.”

It was like the weight of the world was gone, like he was as light as air. Maybe lighter. His friends loved him, trusted him. If he could just work through the mess of things he felt about Jeonghan, things might actually be alright.

————

The four of them had survived everything the world threw at them. It was probably what being in the army felt like. An unspeakable bond, trust a tangible thing between them. He could sleep easily because they were always careful, ready to kill anyone or anything that stood in the way of their survival. 

The government announced the successful use of Neurotriptyline the same day things went wrong.

It was Junhui. It was always Junhui, running in head first, confident in his own abilities and in the other three to keep him out of trouble. He went in swinging, hunting knife already black with blood as he sliced through rotten skin and bone.

Mingyu had never heard anyone scream the way Wonwoo did when Junhui was bitten. Junhui’s eyes went glassy and he echoed the sound as teeth sunk into the side of his neck and ripped flesh away. 

Mingao shot the zombie, a head shot even at such a close distance to Junhui. Wonwoo went in blind, head down at a breakneck run and he caught Junhui before he could crumple to the blacktop. 

Blood. 

There was so much blood. Bright red, brighter than anything Mingyu could remember seeing in his life. 

Wonwoo’s hands pressed desperately at the side of Junhui’s neck, futile to stop the red pouring out. Minghao and Mingyu ran over at the same time. Mingyu’s knees hit the ground hard but he couldn’t feel anything.

Junhui looked at each of them. Minghao first, then Mingyu, and his eyes felt like a weight, like something he’d carry around for the rest of his life.

When Junhui and Wonwoo locked eyes, Wonwoo shook his head, his tears soaking Junhui’s shirt. 

“We can get you to a base, Junhui. You heard the announcement this morning. They can fix you. That drug. They can —”

Junhui gave him a sad smile and shook his head. Minghao was so pale, hands shaking as he took one of Junhui’s into his own. 

Mingyu felt like his head was full of cotton. Everything was fuzzy, and suddenly he was above his body, watching the scene unfold like it was a dream.

“Won’t turn from a bite. You know that,” Junhui coughed out, voice hoarse and grating. Wonwoo’s lip trembled and he carded a blood soaked hand through Junhui’s hair. Minghao squeezed Junhui’s hand tight and Mingyu rubbed Junhui’s thigh, some desperate attempt at comfort. Tears finally fell, hot and heavy, clouding his vision until he couldn’t see at all.

They were supposed to make it out. They’d promised. Whatever it took, the four of them would make it out.

Tomorrow, the government would send troops to round up the zombies, toss them all in prison cells and empty hospitals where they could be medicated and, according to them, rehabilitated into people.

Junhui coughed blood all over Wonwoo’s shirt. Minghao was whispering to him in Mandarin, words that were just for the two of them. Junhui closed his eyes, leaned into the pressure of Minghao’s forehead against his temple. When he was done Junhui nodded and squeezed his hand.

“Please don’t, Junhui. Please. I can’t do this without you. _Please. I_ —” Wonwoo’s words stopped, choked off by his sobs. 

Junhui sat up enough to press a gentle kiss to Wonwo’s cheek. It made more blood gush from his neck, hot and fast, and his eyes fluttered as he slid back down.

“You’ll stay right? Until it’s over?” Junhui whispered, and when Mingyu blinked away his tears he saw how wide Junhui’s eyes were, like he’d finally realized what was happening. 

Like he couldn’t be brave anymore.

“We’d never leave you. You know that,” Mingyu said softly. There was so much he wanted to say, but the words were stuck in his throat, trapt under the tears that wouldn’t stop flowing.

It took thirty minutes. It was the most agonizing half hour of Miingyu’s life. There was nothing they could do. They had no medical equipment, no painkillers. There was nothing to do but watch as Junhui’s eyes closed and his breathing went soft, slow, and then nothing. 

The last thing he said was, “Burn me. I love you.”

And so they did. It took a long time for Wonwoo to let Junhui go, and when Mingyu set his body on the small collection of kindling they’d gathered Wonwoo walked away. Minghao dropped the match, and the two of them stayed until the end, hands clasped tight as tears ran hot and fast.

Wonwoo wasn’t the same, after. He shut down, wouldn’t talk to either of them for days and days and days. He spent a lot of time alone, smoking military ration cigarettes and staring into the streets lit with floodlights that had been dark for such a long time.

Everything was different after Junhui. Suddenly the streets were patrolled, military order was set in place, and the slow, excruciating process of rebuilding began.

It wasn’t fair. It was too cruel. Twenty four hours after they scattered Junhui’s ashes everything was over.

————

The first snow had fallen by the time Mingyu got Jeonghan back to his apartment again. Minghao was away on business and Wonwoo was working. They’d get to be alone.

They were watching reruns of some drama, one of those where the main character is poor and the love interest is rich like that would make everything better. Mingyu came from a pretty well off family, but money did very little when monsters roamed the streets eating humans. He’d been penniless during The Rising, but he’d had things that money couldn’t buy. He was a teacher, somewhere in the middle of the two extremes, and he couldn’t really complain. He had what he needed to live.

Jeonghan was sitting next to him but was careful not to touch him. Things were still a little strange between them. Mingyu wasn’t really sure how to say _ I’m sorry that I kissed you and freaked out because you’re dead and I’m not_.

“What did you study at university, anyway?” Mingyu asked.

Jeonghan hummed.

“Music education, but I originally wanted to go into acting. When I was little, my sister would make me act out dramas and movies with her,” Jeonghan said.

He turned to him, curious. Jeonghan hadn’t told him much about his life before The Rising, and even less about his life when he was alive.

“Really?”

Jeonghan gave him a half smile.

“She was always the hero. Even though I’m her big brother I never minded that she wanted to be the one to save me. It’s nice, sometimes, to be saved.”

Mingyu understood. He had a little sister himself, but she’d always been the princess, and Mingyu always had to slay the dragon and save her.

“After I came back, she wouldn’t leave my side. It was like she blamed herself.”

Jeonghan turned fully toward him and sighed, looking away from his eyes before he spoke again.

“I _ feel _ like me. The same as I was before I died, but no one has treated me the same since I came back. It’s either fear, disgust, or anger. Except my sister. She was just sad, and I couldn’t stay knowing that it hurt her.”

Mingyu reached out for Jeonghan’s hand, put his over top and rubbed gently.

“I’m sorry for what you’ve had to go through.” Mingyu sighed. “And I’m sorry for how I reacted the last time we saw each other. I really freaked out and I shouldn’t have.”

“We all have baggage. I didn’t take it too personally.”

Mingyu looked down at their joined hands. There was a crack, a hole in his chest that would never heal named Wen Junhui, and if Mingyu wanted to have any kind of relationship at all with Jeonghan he was going to have to tell him.

“During The Rising, it was me and Minghao and Wonwoo, but there was someone else, too. Junhui,” Mingyu said, voice soft between them. He looked up, took in Jeonghan’s face for a second before looking back down. “It was right before the government came in. We were ambushed. Junhui, he —”

Jeonghan squeezed his hand. 

“You don’t have to say it.” He tilted Mingyu’s chin so they were eye to eye. “I’m sorry for what happened to you, and I accept your apology.” Jeonghan’s mouth quirked up. “It must be hard to admit you like me as much as I like you.”

Mingyu felt the grin overtake his face and Jeonghan mirrored him. He had a point. They were mostly in the same boat.

It took longer than it should have for Jeonghan’s words to register in Mingyu’s mind.

“Wait. _ Like me_?”

Jeonghan took his hand off Mingyu’s chin and traced the ridges of his knee.

“I know I said I didn’t take it personally, but do you think I’d come back after you ran off on me if I didn’t like you?”

Mingyu’s whole face went warm. Jeonghan. _ Liked _ him. Jeonghan liked Mingyu. Even if Jeonghan was alive it wouldn’t seem like a possibility. Jeonghan was beautiful. He was clever and funny and Mingyu, well, Mingyu was always just a little bit too much to handle.

It didn’t seem like a match that should work. It was strange.

_ The stranger the better. _

That whisper again, soft but insistent in the back of his mind.

Jeonghan smiled.

————

The three of them never really decided to move in together after The Rising. It just happened. They were already so familiar with each other, had spent two long years together day and night. It wasn’t really a question Mingyu even considered. There was only one way to go forward, and it was all together. 

It was six months after Junhui when Wonwoo kissed him. They were piled under blankets on the couch watching some old drama and Wonwoo had smiled at him, that big smile he only got occasionally where his nose scrunched up, and Mingyu’s heart squeezed in his chest at the sight. Wonwoo leaned in and suddenly they were kissing, a soft, gentle thing. There wasn’t any heat behind it, no urgency, but it made Mingyu’s whole body sing with electricity.

When Minghao came home they were still kissing, drama long forgotten, wrapped up in each other on the couch. He just put his hand on his hip, gave them a fondly exasperated smirk and pushed their legs off the couch so he could sit too.

Sometimes Mingyu wondered what other people would think of the way they were dealing with things. It was strange, at the very least. During The Rising everything was strange, but things were supposed to be _ normal _ now. That’s what the government promised when they let the dead back into the world. 

But things had never really gone back to normal. There was too much pain, too much loss, too many nights spent shivering and sleepless in the wasteland of the world for things to ever be the way they were again.

Sometimes Mingyu and Wonwoo kissed each other so they didn’t have to think about anything. Sometimes Minghao and Wonwoo slipped into his bedroom, nothing but hushed murmurs and ragged breathing any indication of what they were doing.

Mingyu and Minghao did those things sometimes, too. 

There weren’t words for their relationship, no labels. The same as during The Rising, but even more blurred. They just were until they weren’t anymore, until Minghao started going out without telling them where and Wonwoo picked up extra shifts and Mingyu started volunteering at the shelter.

They were and then they weren’t. 

Just like The Rising, before they had time to look up it was all over, and Mingyu was left to bandage over the wounds left behind and carry on like none of it ever happened.

————

It was snowing, soft flakes that left the air smelling clean and the world feeling every bit like the fresh start the New Year always promised. Mingyu had spent most of the afternoon cleaning the apartment, scrubbing it top to bottom before heading out to treat himself to his favorite restaurant.

He picked up his food and was on his way back home. The streets were mostly deserted, people taking shelter from the snow or spending time with family. Minghao had gone to China and Wonwoo had gone to see his parents. Mingyu had considered going home, of hugging his mom and teasing his sister. It had been years, since before The Rising. He had so much to tell them, so much he wasn’t ready to say out loud. He didn’t want to tell them what he’d been through so he kept putting it off, but the longer he went the worse it got. A part of him wondered if he’d ever be able to see his family again.

Mingyu was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the figure in the street. It was the shuffling of feet that got his attention. A limp, almost, a weird sound that made every hair on the back of his neck stand up straight. Mingyu stopped walking, but the shuffling came closer. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, heart hammering against his chest painfully.

The figure made it under a street light and Mingyu dropped his food, world narrowing down to Jeonghan, blonde hair and ripped sweater and blood. So much blood.

Mingyu’s rational mind put the pieces together quickly. Jeonghan had been hurt. Someone, or a group of someones had attacked him, hit him so hard he’d bled.

The problem was that Mingyu saw Jeonghan shuffling toward him, mouth stained red with blood, and he was rooted to the spot in icy terror.

It was strange to see Jeonghan like that. The way he must have looked during The Rising. His eyes were brown and most of his makeup was intact, but everything else about him was so zombie-like Mingyu was suddenly in a deserted street in the hot sun, watching Junhui’s blood soak into Wonwoo’s shirt. He couldn’t _ breathe_.

Jeonghan stopped walking, his eyes on the snowy ground in front of him. He gripped his stomach and groaned, spat blood into the snow. There was a steady stream of it coming from his mouth. Mingyu didn’t think the partially deceased could bleed like humans. 

Jeonghan fell to his knees and when his eyes met Mingyu’s they went wide. Two things became immediately clear to Mingyu. The first was that Jeonghan hadn’t expected Mingyu to see him like that. The second was that, based on how calm he was, this wasn’t an unusual thing for Jeonghan to endure.

That thought, that Jeonghan was getting hurt regularly and Mingyu was totally unaware of it, even though they’d known each other for months, was what finally got him moving again. His food long forgotten, he ran to Jeonghan. As soon as his knees hit the snow Jeonghan leaned forward into his chest. He was shaking, and Mingyu didn’t know if he was cold or in pain or missing his meds.

The terror from earlier was almost completely gone. Jeonghan, the zombie had been replaced by Jeonghan, the man Mingyu was kind of falling for who was bleeding and hurt.

“God, what _ happened _ to you?” Mingyu asked, his hands clutching at Jeonghan’s shoulders. “Nevermind. Let’s get you home, okay? Can you stand?”

Jeonghan’s breath left him in a shaky sigh.

“I don’t —”

Mingyu didn’t wait for Jeonghan to finish, just turned his back to him and slipped Jeonghan’s arms around his neck. He was harder to carry than Mingyu thought, deceptively solid, but once he was standing and had him adjusted it was fine. They didn’t have far to go to get to his apartment anyway.

Jeonghan buried his face in Mingyu’s shoulder. He was still trembling, his breaths shaking out in the silence around them. Mingyu felt the dampness of blood or maybe tears on his coat but he didn’t say anything. 

They made it to Mingyu’s apartment in one piece, and Mingyu set Jeonghan down and led him to the couch, turning on a lamp so he could see how badly Jeonghan was hurt.

Well, technically Jeonghan wasn’t able to feel pain, but under the street light he’d certainly looked the part. Mingyu’s heart thudded as he looked Jeonghan up and down.

The corner of his lip was bleeding so heavily that when he opened his mouth, his teeth were stained red. He had a cut under his eye, the skin around it dark like he was bruising. His sweater was ripped and hanging off his shoulder, the pale skin of his collar bone visible.

Mingyu slid his hands down Jeonghan’s arms slowly.

“Can you tell me what happened?” he asked as gently as he could.

Jeonghan was just barely trembling under his hands. Shock, then. Or fear. He wasn’t going rabid. Mingyu felt a bit better at that.

“I was walking home from a bar. Some of my friends wanted to go out and I figured why not, so I joined them. These two guys followed me.” Jeonghan looked down at his hands. “I don’t think they knew about me. At first. One of them was hitting on me and when I told him I wasn’t interested he backed me against a building.”

Mingyu had to fight to keep the anger off his face.

“He put his hand on my shoulder, close to my neck. I think that’s when he realized. His friend, too. Could tell from their eyes when they figured out I was partially deceased.” Jeonghan bit his ruined lip before giving a bitter smirk. “You can see how they felt about that. Apparently thinking a dead person is hot didn’t sit well with him. His friend watched at first, but he joined in once I was on the ground. They stopped when a car drove by. I think they thought it was a cop.”

Mingyu brought his hand up to Jeonghan’s face, rubbed his thumb over his unmarked cheek.

“What were you going to do? Just go back to the roof?”

Jeonghan snorted.

“I’m not on the roof anymore. It’s winter. That would look too suspicious. I moved inside to an apartment on the top floor, but yes, that was the plan. It’s just —”

Jeonghan took a deep breath, looked into Mingyu’s eyes and back down like he wasn’t sure how to say what he was thinking.

“It’s okay. You can tell me,” Mingyu said. He was still tracing the soft skin of Jeonghan’s cheek.

“It...hurts. It _ hurts_, Mingyu. My stomach hurts. My lip hurts. I’m not supposed to feel pain but it hurts _ so much_. My leg, too. They messed up my knee pretty bad. I don’t know if I would have made it all the way back to my place. If you hadn’t come along —”

Jeonghan looked into Mingyu’s eyes and he blinked tears, two fat drops that ran down his cheeks. Mingyu pulled Jeonghan forward and into his chest, rubbed his back gently while Jeonghan shuddered out silent tears.

Jeonghan wasn’t supposed to be able to cry. He shouldn’t be able to feel pain. It was strange, but it was all things to worry about later. Priority one was getting Jeonghan cleaned up, assessing his injuries, getting him into bed.

Mingyu grabbed Jeonghan’s hand and squeezed.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” he said. Jeonghan gave him a strange, closed off look, one Mingyu hadn’t seen since he’d first brought Jeonghan to his apartment.

“Your roommates aren’t going to be happy about this.”

Mingyu shook his head. “It’s fine. They’re...working on it, but they’re both gone for the holiday. It’s just me and you.”

Jeonghan stared at him for a long time before finally nodding. Mingyu stood and led Jeonghan into the bathroom, sat him on the counter and dug out some cloths and antiseptic. 

“This happens to you a lot, doesn’t it? That’s why you’re not freaking out,” Mingyu said, tone flat. He wasn’t sure how it made him feel. Angry. Hurt, maybe. Jeonghan shouldn’t have to suffer. Mingyu should be —

“I wouldn’t say that. A lot makes it sound like it’s every day.” Jeonghan sighed. “But it’s happened enough that it doesn’t surprise me. You’re right about that.”

Mingyu wet one of the cloths under the sink and wrung it out, squeezing it as hard as he could.

“It’s illegal. You have _ rights_, Jeonghan. You’re not some...you’re _ not _ —”

Jeonghan’s hands slid over his and rubbed soothingly. Mingyu forced the tension out of his body with a long sigh.

“The majority of people are nice. I’ve had a lot of kindness shown to me since I left home. Don’t let a few assholes make you think it’s always terrible.”

Mingyu didn’t reply, just set to work cleaning the blood off Jeonghan’s cheek. It was his cheek more than his lip that had Mingyu upset. The first time he’d met Jeonghan he’d looked a little bruised. Mingyu had assumed it was because he was dead, spots of decay from his time in the ground, but he was left wondering if the kids that had taken Jeonghan’s meds all those months ago had hurt him, too. 

He was careful, as gentle as he could be when he cleaned the blood off Jeonghan’s lip and chin. In the harsh light of the bathroom he looked more zombie-like than he had on the street. The blood on his pale skin stark, the blood staining his teeth ominous. 

Mingyu could see it as if he were watching it in real time. Jeonghan, zombie, tearing flesh from some poor man or woman, bashing their head into the ground so they would stop struggling and he could eat.

Mingyu rinsed the blood down the sink and shivered, willed the thoughts away. Jeonghan wasn’t some kind of monster. He thought about the affirmations they taught at the shelter: ‘_What I did in my untreated state wasn’t my fault_.’ 

If that was true, then what about Junhui? Surely, someone was to blame for his death. If it wasn’t the zombie’s fault, did that make it Mingyu’s fault? Minghao? Wonwoo?

Jeonghan reached out and touched Mingyu’s shoulder.

“You look like you’re thinking too hard about something unpleasant,” he said. His eyes traced Mingyu’s face, held his gaze like he was looking straight through him before looking back down. “I can do this myself if it’s weird for you.”

Mingyu shook his head, both to say no and to clear the wild thoughts from his mind.

“I’m fine, really. It’s okay. I want to help you.”

Jeonghan hummed and Mingyu got back to work, cleaning all the blood off Jeonghan’s face before going in with antiseptic. Jeonghan hissed every time Mingyu touched one of the open cuts.

“You can feel it?” Mingyu asked, a little shocked. It was one thing for Jeonghan to tell him that he was feeling pain, but another entirely for him to see it.

Jeonghan. Partially deceased. Pouting on his bathroom counter because his cuts stung. Something was really, really strange.

“It’s dull. Not as bad as earlier, but yes. I can still feel it.”

There was blood on Jeonghan’s sweater. Mingyu stared at it, wondering absently if he could get the stain out or if he’d have to give Jeonghan new clothes. There was an old sweater in his closet. A soft gray. A little too small for him. Worn from use, but it would look good on Jeonghan. It would even look good with his yellow eyes.

Mingyu didn’t think about it, just leaned down and kissed Jeonghan on the unmarked corner of his mouth. 

Kiss it better. A childhood habit, ingrained into Mingyu’s very being, and when he pulled back he was as shocked as Jeonghan was, eyes wide in his reflection.

Mingyu cleared his throat and stepped back from between Jeonghan’s knees.

“Let me — uh — do you want some different clothes?” 

Jeonghan didn’t reply. He slid off the counter and Mingyu led him across the hall to his bedroom. 

It was there, in the doorway that Jeonghan’s eyes flashed hot and he pressed Mingyu into the wall as he kissed him.

Blood. Jeonghan tasted like the whisper of blood still on his lips, and as much as Mingyu had been afraid of what Jeonghan was, the only thing he felt was want. He gripped Jeonghan’s hips and pulled him closer. Jeonghan hummed and wound his arms around Mingyu’s neck. 

From there Mingyu lost himself to the haze of it, pressing Jeonghan tighter against his body and tracing the inside of his mouth with his tongue. His fingers wandered up from Jeonghan’s hips and under his ruined sweater. Jeonghan’s skin was cool, icy even though they’d been in the warmth of Mingyu’s apartment for a while. 

Mingyu slotted his leg between Jeonghan’s thighs and he shivered, gasped into his mouth and pressed his hips into Mingyu, seeking friction. Mingyu could feel how hard he was between them.

Jeonghan seemed to realize it too. He pulled back and blinked, held Mingyu at a distance by his shoulders.

“I’m... I —”

Mingyu pressed his thigh against him again, pleased at the way Jeonghan’s eyes fluttered as he gasped.

“It’s the first time since I came back. It’s never happened before,” he said, his voice low.

Mingyu was sure that should mean something, but it was hard to focus on anything that wasn’t getting as much of Jeonghan as he could. He crashed their lips together again, Jeonghan’s hands moving from his shoulders and into the hair at the nape of his neck.

Mingyu’s body was hot. Heat, like fire, like he’d burn up if Jeonghan didn’t keep touching him. He worked Jeonghan’s sweater up, exposed more cool skin for his hands to roam over, and Jeonghan broke their kiss to pull it over his head. 

He was, of course, gorgeous. Mingyu’s eyes roamed his skin, took in every line of muscle, every soft curve, the gentle dip between his hips. Mingyu felt like he should say something, but every thought in his mind was wiped clean. Jeonghan was beautiful and Mingyu was going to keep kissing him. He’d take anything Jeonghan was willing to give him.

Mingyu guided Jeonghan toward the bed, and when he sat down he expected Jeonghan to sit next to him, or maybe, if he was lucky, sit on his lap. What he didn’t expect was Jeonghan to kneel between his legs, body like marble, and stare down at him with a kind of hunger that made Mingyu’s whole body tingle.

He pulled Mingyu into another kiss, wet and messy and not even pretending at gentleness. Mingyu groaned, shifted his thighs open just a fraction more and splayed his hands across Jeonghan’s bare skin. 

Jeonghan pulled at his shirt, insistent, and Mingyu grinned against his lips and moved back enough to take it off and toss it to the floor. He leaned in to kiss Jeonghan again but was pushed back against the mattress instead. Mingyu was breathless, staring down the bed at Jeonghan, his eyes dark as his hands trailed up Mingyu’s sides, across his chest, back down to his jeans.

“I want to — can I —” Jeonghan started, voice strained as he looked away from Mingyu’s face.

Mingyu propped himself up on his elbow, reached out and turned Jeonghan’s face back to his.

“Whatever you want,” Mingyu said. 

Jeonghan sighed out a breath as he focused on getting Mingyu out of his clothes, palming his cock as soon as his jeans were on the floor. Mingyu threw his head back and bit his lip. He was only half hard but already on edge. When he looked back into Jeonghan’s eyes they were dark, lip trapped between his teeth as he traced his fingers over Mingyu’s shaft. 

It took a lot of effort to keep his hips down, to not whine. Once again, it was like Jeonghan could read his mind.

“Sensitive,” he grinned, “You always like this or has it been awhile?”

Mingyu opened his mouth to reply but gasped instead as Jeonghan wrapped his hand around Mingyu and stroked him from base to tip.

It was a bit of both, really. Jeonghan’s hands felt so _ good_, one setting a slow rhythm, the other gripping his hip tight enough to bruise. Mingyu wondered a bit dizzily if Jeonghan was going to fuck him.

Jeonghan liked to tease. Mingyu should have known from how often Jeonghan got that glint in his eye. He kept almost smirking, the corner of his lip quirking before he caught himself and tucked it away only to squeeze Mingyu’s cock, drag his thumb across the slit while Mingyu groaned.

“If I ask you to do something, will you do it?”Jeonghan asked, grinning for real this time. 

Mingyu’s resolve burned away as the question coursed through him. He bucked into Jeonghan’s hand and choked around a low, desperate sound.

Jeonghan blinked, arousal clear on his face.

“I’ll remember that.” His hand slowed on Mingyu’s cock. “But back to what I want you to do for me.”

Mingyu bit his lip hard enough that he had to be bleeding. He could feel his teeth cutting through the skin. Jeonghan was going to _ ruin _ him.

Jeonghan tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear. “Stay still.”

He replaced his hand with his mouth, and Mingyu’s head slammed into the mattress, stars exploding in the darkness behind his eyelids. Jeonghan’s hands were cool but his mouth was like fire, hot and wet and almost too much for Mingyu to handle.

He dug his fingers into the sheets and barely managed to keep his hips on the bed.

“_Oh God _ _ —_”

Jeonghan hummed, working his mouth lower at a tortuously slow pace. He kept both hands on Mingyu’s hips, pressing like he didn’t really trust him to behave. That was fine. Mingyu kind of got off on exceeding expectations.

Arousal washed over him in waves, ebbed and flowed to the rhythm of Jeonghan’s mouth on his cock. His tongue pressed into every sensitive spot like he knew Mingyu inside and out, like they’d done this a hundred times before. Mingyu’s hands went tight in the sheets at the thought of it. Being with Jeonghan again and again, knowing him inside and out. 

He wanted it so much it knocked the breath out of him.

Jeonghan’s mouth met the base of his cock and Mingyu keened.

“_Fuck _, God —”

Jeonghan’s tongue was heavy against his cock as he came up, looking at Mingyu with half-lidded eyes. He took one hand off Mingyu’s hip and worked it over his spit-slicked skin.

“You’re loud,” Jeonghan said, voice rough and eyes dark, hungry for something Mingyu was more than willing to give him. “I like it.”

The compliment went straight to his groin, coiled tight in his stomach and he squeezed his eyes shut as Jeonghan’s hand worked over him faster.

He wanted to pull Jeonghan onto the bed with him. Kiss him and touch him and even if Jeonghan didn’t want to go all the way they could still both get off. Mingyu wanted to see his face when he came. He’d do anything Jeonghan wanted.

Jeonghan’s mouth was back around his cock and Mingyu moaned, his thighs tensing as he fought to stay still.

Jeonghan was unbelievable. Skilled fingers, talented mouth. Mingyu was certain those skills extended to fucking, too. Next time. If there was one. 

It was like standing on a cliff. One moment Mingyu was fine and the next he was plummeting toward orgasm. 

He slipped his hand through Jeonghan’s hair.

“I’m — if you keep going —”

Jeonghan came up with an obscene sound.

“That’s the idea,” he said simply before sliding Mingyu’s cock down his throat.

It was the feeling of Jeonghan’s fingers on his thighs, his tongue rubbing the underside of his cock, the look in his eyes when he glanced up that sent Mingyu over the edge.

He came with a moan, Jeonghan’s name buried in the sound. Jeonghan didn’t move his mouth, just swallowed down Mingyu’s come with a shiver.

He worked Mingyu through it until his hand found its way back into Jeonghan’s hair, his body thrumming with sensitivity. Jeonghan leaned into the touch and took his mouth off Mingyu’s cock with a small sound. Mingyu pulled him closer until he was off the floor and on top of him. Bare skin on bare skin. Mingyu’s entire body was on fire, Jeonghan a much cooler contrast. His hands were next to Mingyu’s shoulders, and he stared down at him for such a long time Mingyu huffed and wrapped a hand around the back of his neck to pull him into a kiss.

When they broke apart Mingyu sighed, feeling boneless and totally spent. Jeonghan gave him a wolfish grin as he rolled off of him to lay on his side. He was still hard, straining tight against his jeans. Mingyu reached between them, pressed his hand against him and Jeonghan made a choked sound before pulling Mingyu’s hand away.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Jeonghan said hastily, like he thought Mingyu might misunderstand. “It’s just...it hasn’t happened since before I died. I want to make sure things aren’t...weird. Rain check for next time?”

Jeonghan’s voice was too wary. Mingyu didn’t like that even after sucking him off Jeonghan wasn’t sure where they stood. 

He pulled Jeonghan closer and tugged their hands together.

“Definitely next time,” he murmured, leaning in to kiss him. Jeonghan hummed and Mingyu’s heart squeezed. He was falling. Maybe he’d already fallen all the way. 

When they broke the kiss Mingyu tucked one of his arms behind his head and settled against the bed. Instead of thinking about the wall of feelings staring him down he decided to ask about Jeonghan instead.

“What do you think is happening to you?” Mingyu asked. “Have you heard about other partially deceased people being able to feel pain?”

“I’ve heard rumors about it,” Jeonghan said. He pressed his lips against Mingyu’s shoulder once before he continued. “A girl in London. They say that her heart started beating. They say she’s alive again.” He looked at something above Mingyu’s head, distracted. “You know they didn’t test the meds long enough. No one really knows what will happen long term.”

“A lot of the younger kids at the shelter have talked about it in group. They’re worried they’ll build up a tolerance, or that the medicine will stop working and they’ll go rabid again,” Mingyu said.

Out of the two, it seemed the more likely long term side effect, but Jeonghan had _ cried_. He’d _ bled_. He’d been in enough pain to fall to his knees in the street. Something was happening to him, and all that Mingyu could do was wait and see what happened.

Mingyu’s hand traced Jeonghan’s bare back absently. 

“You know, I really like you, Yoon Jeonghan,” he said, and the words brought a small smile to his lips. 

Jeonghan’s eyebrow quirked. 

“You do? Doesn’t seem like a good idea. A nice, handsome human and a scary, brain eating zombie.”

Mingyu pushed at Jeonghan’s shoulder gently and Jeonghan’s smirk broke into laughter. Mingyu laughed too, and a strange kind of peace washed over him.

“You aren’t some mindless zombie,” Mingyu countered when his laughed died down. He ran his fingers through Jeonghan’s soft blonde hair, and just like that he knew that he’d do anything it took to keep Jeonghan next to him.

“Are you sure about that?” Jeonghan teased as he wrapped his leg around Mingyu’s hip. “Sometimes when I’m with you I feel like I can’t think at all.”

Mingyu could see the concern locked deep in Jeonghan’s words. Jeonghan was very likable. It had taken very little time, in the grand scheme of things, for attraction to take root in his chest, to wind around his heart and cradle it. But there was a wall, invisible yet solid, the words _ partially deceased _ spray painted across it. 

Jeonghan and Mingyu were not the same, but Mingyu had never really cared about that sort of thing.

He splayed his hands across Jeonghan’s lower back and pulled him in closer, kissing him languidly.

He knocked their foreheads together when they broke apart, a lazy grin spreading across his face.

“It’s the same. For me.”

————

The summer before it was all over found them lounging near a stream. Well, Minghao refused to get in the water, only using enough to get the dirt off his skin and out of his hair. Junhui, of course, was swimming.

“There’s fish in here. It’s clean enough,” he whined, splashing at Minghao like a child.

Minghao just rolled his eyes and laid back against the sun warmed rocks. Mingyu was cleaning his shirt off after scrubbing his fingers through his hair. There wasn’t a lot of soap and some days rationing it made him want to crawl out of his skin, but something about the heat of the day made it a little more bearable. The toothpaste rationing was easily the worst thing about their situation, even worse than the zombies.

Almost two years of life at the apocalypse found Mingyu skinny but strong, tanned from the sun and his hair longer than it had been his entire life. They were all in various states of the same condition. Like they were actors preparing for a difficult role, morphing their bodies into something unrecognizable.

Junhui stood up and water steamed down his bare chest. Mingyu’s mouth went dry.

“I think it’ll be over soon,” Junhui said. He sat down on a threadbare towel they’d brought with them and shook the water out of his hair. Minghao groaned as drops hit his face. 

“What do you mean?” Minghao asked. He was looking at Junhui like he was equal parts genius and crazy. 

Junhui laid back against the rocks and sighed.

“There can’t be that many more of them left, right? Soon they’ll all be dead, _ really _ dead, and we’ll be the only ones left.”

Wonwoo, who was washing his hair a few yards away, froze.

“What happens when they’re all gone?” Wonwoo’s voice was low, hesitant, like he didn’t want to jinx them.

Mingyu broke out in goosebumps.

What _ did _ happen after that? Were they supposed to rebuild? Find other survivors and play at making some kind of civilized life?

A small, secret part of him thought it would be better if things just stayed the way they were. The four of them were doing fine, and life would only get easier once all the zombies were gone. 

Junhui still hadn’t talked to Wonwoo or Minghao about...things. The timing wasn’t right, he’d said. Soon, he promised. Under the moonlight, sprawled on a rooftop, his fingers trailing across Mingyu’s palm like fire.

By the time _ soon _ arrived, Junhui was dead, and Mingyu couldn’t find the words to explain to anyone what he’d lost.

————

Winter gave way to spring, and after countless almost-but-not-quite dates Mingyu introduced Jeonghan to Wonwoo and Minghao. Considering how things had started nearly a year ago, with Minghao storming out and Wonwoo ruining their kitchen wall, Mingyu was unbelievably nervous. He really liked Jeonghan, and he loved his roommates. It was a silly thing to hope for, but he wanted them all to get along, to hang out together, for Jeonghan to blend into their group like he’d always been there.

When he brought Jeonghan over, Wonwoo was playing some game on his laptop and Minghao was typing furiously next to him. The two of them looked up at the same time, and Mingyu felt like he was sixteen again, bringing his first boyfriend over to meet his parents. 

His mom had been kind, warm and welcoming and accepting. He hoped that Wonwoo and Minghao could be that way, too.

It was Wonwoo that broke the ice, pausing his game and walking over to shake Jeonghan’s hand. He gave him a tiny smile, one that Mingyu only noticed because of the years they’d spent together. 

Minghao waited a few more minutes, typing away on his laptop but Mingyu could tell that he was clicking around for noise, eyebrows drawn down and mouth in a line as the considered what he wanted to do.

He sighed, a long suffering sound, but he got up and walked over to them. 

He didn’t shake Jeonghan’s hand, but he did talk to him. 

Later, after Jeonghan went home Mingyu couldn’t stop grinning.

It was maybe a week after that when Mingyu made up his mind. Jeonghan was Partially Deceased, but he was also beautiful, kind when he wanted to be, fun and sexy and Mingyu really, _ really _ wanted to see where things would end up with him. 

There were questions. There were always questions. Jeonghan would never age, was as close to immortal as a person could get, and Mingyu was just a man. There was the possibility that the Neurotriptyline would stop working, that at some point Jeonghan would revert back to a zombie, that Mingyu might have to do something unspeakable to someone he cared about.

There was also the matter of that rumor Jeonghan had talked about, the one about the woman in London coming back to life. _That _was something to consider, too.

Mingyu was a romantic at heart. He couldn’t help it. He fell hard and he loved too much and too fast. He’d been that way his entire life. It was that way during The Rising with Minghao, with Junhui, and later on with Wonwoo. He’d fallen in love so many times it was hard to keep track.

Jeonghan. Sometimes they were so different Mingyu didn’t know how they managed to be around each other. It must have been love, or feelings of some kind, that kept Jeonghan from storming out when they couldn’t agree on a tv show, or when Mingyu couldn’t stop talking even though he knew Jeonghan wasn’t interested.

Mingyu took Jeonghan to an abandoned rooftop at the edge of the city. There was nothing beyond but barren streets, crumbling buildings, and while it wasn’t romantic in the traditional sense, it was still beautiful.

“What’s this?” Jeonghan asked when they made it to the top. 

He looked out at the emptiness before turning to face Mingyu. He was wearing a flowing button down and light wash jeans. His hair still blonde, still just below his chin, but there was the smallest amount of black showing at the top of his head. Mingyu didn’t want to read too much into it. If he’d learned anything in his life, it was that the present was the only guarantee, and living as much as possible in the present was the only real way to live.

Mingyu walked closer and wrapped his hands around Jeonghan’s hips. If Wonwoo knew where he’d brought Jeonghan, he’d probably say something about the symbolism. To the South, nothing. To the North, the city humanity was still rebuilding. Past and Future. And between Mingyu’s hands — 

He leaned down and kissed Jeonghan, who let out a pleased hum before wrapping his arms around Mingyu’s neck and kissing him just as earnestly.

“I want you to be my boyfriend,” Mingyu said against Jeonghan’s lips.

Jeonghan grinned. 

“Are you sure? Isn’t it a bit strange, dating someone that’s technically dead?”

Mingyu’s nose slid across Jeonghan’s cheek.

“The stranger the better.”

And like it always seemed, Jeonghan understood something he hadn’t been able to even talk about in detail, and he brought their lips back together.

“I think you’d make a pretty decent boyfriend,” Jeonghan said, smirking in that infuriatingly cute way he did when he was doing something just to get under Mingyu’s skin. “Let’s date.”

Mingyu’s heart squeezed and he wrapped his arms around Jeonghan’s waist, buried his face in his shoulder and grinned like a lovesick fool.

It was there, ear pressed to his neck, that Mingyu heard Jeonghan’s soft inhale, his short, breathless laugh, the distinct _ thump-thump _ of a single heartbeat.

**Author's Note:**

> My two favorite things about In the Flesh (besides Kieren Walker (♥‿♥)!!!) are:
> 
> 1) the interactions between humans and the partially deceased, how these groups sort out their feelings about their world and each other. It's so very interesting!
> 
> 2) There's this idea in the show of the First Risen and the open-ended season 2 finale where one of the partially deceased might have become human again! Considering the way the medication works it's certainly something to think about.
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed this!!! I'll be back before you know it <33
> 
>   
[Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/woncheoling) // [Curious Cat](https://curiouscat.me/tsukkitaeil)


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